


Memory

by FullofCats



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Psychological Trauma, Torture, canon until 2:10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-15 08:41:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 27,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3440747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullofCats/pseuds/FullofCats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four months after the events of What they Become, Phil Coulson learns that Ward has been kidnapping Hydra Agents and is being torture by Hydra for the intel. When the team take a chance on rescuing him, Ward wakes up claiming not knowing who he is or the team. </p>
<p>Coulson tries some desperate measures to figure out if Ward is lying or not, but instead starts uncovering some deep dark secrets from Ward's past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Snatch and Grab

**Author's Note:**

> I would love a beta. I'm at fullofcats81 at gmail.com
> 
> I wrote this before I read the spoilers about lady Sif.

            He waits in the car across the street as she exits the building. Just a simple grab, nothing more. That is all he does. He doesn't have backup and he hasn't needed it all the other times. He has to do this alone. Maybe in a few months, the others would be ready. They could do a big sweep and grab more than one person at a time. They can't do it now. They have limited resources: A couple of cars, a few guns, a small plane, and some inside information. He hasn't grabbed a lot of field agents knowing it might make the snatch and grab more difficult. Instead he focuses on scientists.

            He watches her routine every day. She rides a bike to work and locks it in front. A half-hour before, he let the air out of her front tire, giving him some time to grab her.

            He gets out of the car so he would be at the bike rack the same time she is. He doesn't watch her come out but knows she's there.

            He is surprise how young she looks. She reminds him of Simmons.

            “Damn,” he hears her say. He takes a deep breath. Now is the time.

            “What's the matter?” He smiles when she looks at him. It's always been hard to act around women, but he only has to do this for a few minutes.

            “The tire is flat. I have to get home.”

            “Hold on, a sec, I got a patch kit. Why don't you take the tire off and I'll fix it.”

            “Sure,” she says and smiles at him. “Do you work in the building?”

            “Not always, sometimes I come to be debriefed.” He needs her to lean over so he could use the needle in his pocket on her.

            She turns around, giving him a chance to move closer. Before he has a chance to do anything, she spins around and swiftly kicks him into the stomach. He isn't prepared and he loses his breath, but he manages to block her next blow. He grabs one of her arm and spins her around.

            “I’m trying to help you,” he says.

            She untangles herself from him but doesn't move.

            He feels a gun in his back. Before he has a chance to do anything, everything goes black.


	2. Ve have Vays of Making You talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has the torture and stuff. Still don't have a beta. Sorry for the grammar errors.

            He isn’t sure where he is now. Before he was woken up by a bucket of cold water being dumped on him while he’s tied to the chair, with an immediately predicable follow up of being beaten. He takes the blows the way he always does. He’s used to it. They beat him to a pulp breaking three ribs at least, maybe more until he's knocked unconsciousness again.

When he wakes up, he’s in a seated position, but he can’t move. He realizes that he is cuffed to a chair including his neck, hands, and feet. He isn't wearing shoes or a shirt. He looks up, sees only a window and the view outside of Midtown Manhattan buildings. He's still in the same building he tried to abduct the scientist from.

            A moment later, a woman’s face appears to him. She looks like she's his age with long black hair and Eurasian face. She’s pretty but not as much as Skye.

            “Awake?” she says.

            “No.”

            The woman chuckles. He knows who she was. Merriem Drew, a very high up in Hydra. He doesn’t know if there are any guards in the room because of the cuff around his neck.

            She touches his face in almost a sweet way. Gently moving his hand across his cheeks. He much rather be punched.

            “I have nothing to say.”

            She laughs again but it sounds forced.

            “Tell me, Mr. Ward, when did you start working for SHIELD again?”

            Now it is Ward's turn to laugh. “Lady, I think you have your history wrong. I was with John Garrett when we penetrated shield. I killed Victoria Hand. I was with Daniel Whitehall.”

            “In which after his death you vanished with one of our assets. Agent 33.”

            “She's dead.”

            “And all the other agents you've kidnapped from Hydra?”

            “They’re dead too.”

            Drew chuckles again. Ward is already tired of her laugh. He expects her to hit him, but she doesn’t.

            “So you don't work for SHIELD but you are killing Hydra agents.”

            “Yes.”

            “You make no sense, Mr. Ward.”

            “That’s pretty much the story of my life.”

            Ward is relieved when she doesn't laugh again.

            “The thing is all the agents you supposedly killed were brainwashed SHIELD agents. So I can only assume you did not kill them and that you turned them over to SHIELD.”

            “Sorry, you have the wrong number. I don’t work for SHIELD. I don’t work for Hydra.”

            Drew smiles. She holds up something in her hand that looked like a remote.

            “Have you ever been at the edge of agony Mr. Ward?”

            “My entire life.”

            She presses the button. Ward feels four tiny needles penetrated his back going into his spine. It hurt like a spine tap, but it isn’t the agony she promised.

            “Tell me where the agents are.”

            “Dead.”

            She smiles at him, and then rotates a button on the remote. Ward feels a jolt of something electrical then the agony she promised. It felt like every nerve ending was on fire. Ward doesn’t want to scream but when he finally lets one out, more follows.

            Then it stops. Ward gasps for breath.

            “Mr. Ward, where are my agents? Did you turn them over to SHIELD?”

            “No.” The pain lingers. He can still feeling the tingling. “I killed them all.”

            She doesn't turn the device back on.

            “Mr. Ward, why would you kill them?”

            “Because they're Hydra.”

            The pain comes back but only briefly. Not long enough for him to scream again.

            “Pick a side Mr. Ward, Hydra or SHIELD?”

            “How about neither?”

            Drew laughs. “You're very funny, Mr. Ward. You don't work for SHIELD but you kill Hydra agents.”

            “I picked them because they were easy to kill.”

            She smiles again. He hates her smile as well. Like a viper. “First thing you've said that's been true. You've been kidnapping scientists. Maybe helping SHIELD get a heads up on us.”

            Ward hears her walking across the room. He doesn't know what going to happen next, but he needs to make sure she tortures him to death. He would die before he ever says anything. He won't betray the others.

            The pain comes back on suddenly. He doesn't keep his scream inside. His body slams against the restraints in agony.

            She walks back over. She twists the knob and the pain stops.

            “And you stole The Stick didn't you?”

            “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

            The pain again. His nerves feel almost on fire but he has to get could get through this. He'll never talk. He takes a deep breath in but the pain makes it shallow.

            Then It stops. Ward uses that moment to take in his deep breath. He remembers his training, all of it. He could take pain, emotional, physically. He could do it. He has been trained since he was a child.

            “You're wasting your time.”

            “Where is SHIELD keeping my agents?”

            “I don't work for SHIELD.”

            The woman laughs. “Shall I call Coulson and ask?”

            Ward laughs so hard, he snorts. This actually breaks her calm visage and he sees annoyance in her face. She turns the device back on and keeps it on for a good minute.

When she's done, he hears her walk away. A moment later a speaker phone starts ringing.

            “He's doesn't know anything,” Ward says, concern fills his voice. “He's not going to care.”


	3. I don't work for anyone

            Coulson pauses when a phone rings. He was in the middle of a meeting with Skye and May. He has several on his desk. This one is a Hydra phone with no caller ID.

            “Put a trace on it,” he tells Skye.

            “Remember to say, Hail Hydra,” Skye says.

            “I know that. Hello, um—Hail Hydra?” he says, picking up.

            “Why, Hello, Agent Coulson,” says a female voice-- young with no trace of accent. 

            “I think you have the wrong number.”

            “I know I haven't, Agent Coulson. I have one of your agents.”

            Coulson takes a deep breath. He puts the phone on speaker. He has a few agents out in the field. He is particularly worried about Jemma.

            “Oh, I'm on speaker, how lovely.”

            “You said you have one of my agents.”

            “Yes. For him, I want to know what you've done with mine.”

            Coulson’s confused. He looks at May but she shrugs her shoulders.

            “I’m afraid I don't know what you’re talking about.”

            “You've kidnapped at least 12 of our scientists. I want them back.”

            Coulson looks at Skye but she is working on her laptop.

            “Honestly I have no idea what you're talking about. We haven't kidnapped any Hydra agents. We've killed a few.” And the only Hydra prisoners they've ever had were Ward and Bakshi.

            “Over the last three months, Hydra scientists have been vanishing. So we planted a few to be bait. That's when we captured your agent.”

            “I don't know what game you're playing at,” Coulson says. “But I promise you. I have no idea where your agents are.”

            The woman snickers. Coulson’s office is filled with a man screaming for twenty seconds. “Shall I go on or keep torturing?”

            “We don't negotiate but you're torturing him for no reason. We don't have your people. If we did, you might hear some screaming from this end.”

            The screaming stops, then there is a loud voice. “Coulson, tell this crazy woman I don't work for you.”

            Coulson doesn't miss a beat. “Ward works for you, not me.”

            “He doesn't work for me.”

            “I don't work for anyone,” says Ward. It's weak. Coulson could hear it. Coulson looks at Skye and then at May. Skye’s still looking at her computer. May has no expression.

            “Look,” Coulson says. “I really don't care what happens to Ward. Torture him to death if you have too. We do not have your people. Ward has been working let's says Independent since he escaped from us.”

            “You say you don't care. Have you every experienced so much pain you wished you were dead but death or unconsciousness never comes?”

            Coulson does, but he doesn't telling her.

            “This machine I have will give Mr. Ward agonizing pain. And I think I can keep him conscious for four hours. I won't let him die, not until one of you tells me what you have done with my agents.”

            “I’m sorry Ward has to go though terrible pain, but he brought this upon himself. We don't know where your agents are. If Ward does, then you should ask him. Good—“

            “Wait,” Skye says, looking up from her computer.

            “Who's that?”

            “Just a former friend of Wards. Can you do me a favor?”

            “What?”

            “Can I hear him scream for a little while longer?”

            The woman laughs. “We have some openings at Hydra is you're interested, young lady.”

            “I don't think so.”

            Ward’s screaming starts again. Coulson is disturbed not because of Ward but Skye’s enjoyment. She doesn't turn the speaker off, but she does go back to her computer. Even May looks disturbed.

            No one in the room says anything as they hear Grant Ward scream. A few minutes later, the call disconnects.

            “Skye—“ May says

            Skye turns around her computer. On it is a map of New York and a dot flashing around 59th street.

            “What? I'm just curious to know what Ward is doing with Hydra agents.”

           

            After she disconnects the call, she turns the device off. Ward uses this moment to take in a deep breath. Even with the device shut off, he can still feeling painful tingles running through his body.

            “Told you,” he says, in-between breaths. “I don’t work for SHIELD.”

            “I think I might believe that. However,” she says and he hears her walk back to him. He feels her fingers rub against his skin and he shivers even though he was sweating. “Where are my agents? Mr. Ward?”

            “Dead, I told you. And if you must know. It was a surprise for Coulson.”

            The pain again just for a moment.

            “Stop taking me for a fool.” She places cold on his something on his chest near his heart. He remembers when Deathlok did the same thing, but instead of his heart stopping, he feels a small shock and then his adrenaline and heart rate go up.

            “This will keep you awake for at least two hours, maybe more,” she says. “In which I will leave this machine on. When I’m back, you will tell me where my agents are. I know you were trained for black ops can take torture for a long time, but this device makes everyone talk.”

            “Might as well shoot me now because I’ve told you the truth. I don't like SHIELD but I hate Hydra even more. And I’m just killing your agents one at a time.”

            Pain again. It shears through his body. He holds in a scream but there is nothing to stop it from escaping his lips.

            “You'll talk, Mr. Ward. They always do. I’ll see you in a few hours.”


	4. Anyone want to rescue Ward, anyone?

Coulson looks out the window. May is flying around buildings, so close that he could see people working in their offices. He wishes he could have a fleet of cloaked Quinjets.

The plan seems simple but he knows it probably won't be. When he asks for volunteers no one responds. Only when says he's going does May, Skye, and Hunter volunteer. He's glad Jemma is off on a mission with Morse because he could hear her now telling him this is a bad idea.

And he can’t even look Fitz and the Koenig brothers in the eye.

He tries to rationalize this. Extract Ward, get the information on the Hydra agents, and turn him over to the authorities where he will have a long life in prison and a short one waiting for lethal injection.

“This isn't going to be very safe,” May says. As she lands the jet on the roof of the building. Hydra has swanky quarters. According to business records, the building is owned by a pair of billionaire brothers. “And the only reason I'm here is to make sure you and Skye don't get killed. No offense Hunter. You can handle yourself.”

“None taken.” He says as he smiles. “Hazard pay, right boss?”

Coulson doesn't respond. He doesn't tell his team that while Fury left a decent amount of money at the Playground, they are not exactly wealthy.

“This will be a normal extraction. We've done it before.”

“With an entire SHIELD team Ironically we're rescuing an expert in extraction,” May says in a low voice.

“Don't worry, May,” Skye says. “We'll all get a chance to pummel him for info.”

The plan is simple. Land on the roof and shake the building enough to set off the fire alarm. Coulson hopes they won't evacuate Ward.

“Remember not to damage the plane,” May says to Skye.

“No problem.”

“Teams of two in case we run into trouble. Hunter, you're with me, Skye, you're with May. Hunter and I will locate Ward. You'll both be our backup in case of trouble. Everyone clear?”

He doesn't wait for a response. Instead he opens the door to the outside night air. Skye follows him first.

He knows she doesn't like to use her powers, always afraid she'll lose control. And he knows she certainly doesn't like doing it for the man who betrayed them.

Still a moment later the building shakes hard. Skye doesn't stop until they hear alarm bells.

Hunter breaks open the roof door and Coulson and he run down some metal stairs that lead to the top floor which is the 40th.

Coulson opens the door a crack to look into the nearby stairwell. The only thing he could see are flashing lights. The alarm rings out loudly.

He looks at Hunter and the both go through the door.

Not far is the regular buildings stairwell. Coulson peeks through the door. He doesn’t see anyone but he hears people. He enters with Hunter behind him. Looking down, he sees large amount staff slowly making their way down the stairs. Hunter and Coulson catch up to join them.

No one seems to notice or care they aren't wearing badges.

The walk to 28th is uneventful as they merge together with the crowd. Coulson feels a little weird being among a pool of Hydra workers. Were they all evil like Ward or just misguided?

Problems happen when they reach 29. Coulson can see the entrance below. So far all the floor entrances have had closed doors, but this one is guarded by a very tall and mean looking guy.

Coulson looks at Hunter and smiles. When the get to the guard, Hunter stands directly next to Coulson blocking the view of the people walking next to him. Coulson uses this moment to hit the guard at close range with an icer. Before the guard falls, Coulson and Hunter shove him through the door and lets it close behind them.

“How long will he be out?” Hunter asks. They have no choice but the leave the guard on the floor next to the stairwell, but they use him as a wedge to keep the door shut.

“We should have enough time.”

The 28th floor is empty but the alarms are still blaring. It is looks more fancy than the 40th floor with lush carpeting and antique furniture. Coulson feels like he's in a lions den.

“Which way?” Hunter asks. Coulson picks up his phone, which Skye has programed to have the location.

“This way.”

At the end of the hall are two large oak double doors. Coulson reaches for the knobs but it is locked.

“Wouldn’t want to ruin their beautiful doors,” Hunter says, then shoots out the lock.

Coulson and Hunter open the door right into a barrel of a large gun. Holding it is a hydra guard wearing all black. The guard motions them to step in.


	5. Snobs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obviously this becomes AU starting tonight.

Coulson and Hunter do as he asks. They walk into a spacious office and place the guns on a table. The guards push them to the center of the room. Ward is immediately in Coulson line of vision. He’s cuffed to a chair and his head is down. He’s not screaming but occasionally he twitches.

“He stopped screaming about a half an hour ago,” says a female voice. It's the same one from the phone. Coulson looks up to see a very lovely woman looking like she's about to go to a fancy dinner.

“Is he dead?” Coulson asks, plainly.

“No—this machine never kills anyone,” she says and she smiles, “It just causes them to suffer. Now, Agent Coulson, where are my agents?”

“I was being honest before. I don't know. I do know you have a wanted fugitive that I need to take into custody.”

The woman laughs.

“What is SHIELD now? A couple of agents making mischief? You're so desperate you’re taking in Hydra agents as new recruits. Having you learned anything yet?”

“Honestly, I really don't know what he's been doing with your agents. I don't know if you know it, the man’s a psychopath. Nothing he does makes sense. And he’s been doing his best to play both sides. Better to just get rid of him.”

Coulson realizes he has to keep the woman talking knowing that May and Skye are not far behind them. 

“And it makes sense you came here to rescue him?”

“Arrest him,” Coulson corrected.

The woman laughs. Couslon already doesn't like her. “Wouldn't you just let Hydra have him?”

“The man is a stone cold killer. I could see you using that as an asset with a little brainwashing.”

“You're very funny, Agent Coulson, but I don't believe any of it. I think you came here to rescue your agent before he talks. I am curious to know how you made the building shake?”

“You might have taken a lot of our tech, but not all of it.” He’s nervous but doesn't show it. 

“Well, shake the building all you like. You won't leave this building alive,” she looks over to Hunter and moves a little closer to him. “How about you. I don't know you,

“I'm nobody.”

She smiles. “Nobody from the east end?”

Hunter smiles but says nothing.

“Hydra has a lot of capital. We can make it worth your while.”

“No, thank you.”

“Otherwise we have the machine for you as well. Agent Coulson—I think I'll just kill you.”

She doesn't get a chance to finish as the room shakes violently. Hunter nabs the guns from the nearby table and takes care of the two guards. Coulson struggles with the viper lady for the gun. 

Then the beautiful oak doors explode. Viper lady is momentarily caught off guard and her eyes widened when Skye and May enter the room.

This gives Coulson the distraction he needs. He grabs the gun from her hands. 

“Which one of you did that?” the woman asks. 

“Sorry,” Coulson says. “That’s classified.” He shoots her once in the head. He doesn’t like doing it, but he feels he has no choice. No one else seems to mind.

“Let’s get that machine off,” he says. “May search the desk.”

May does has he asks. She comes back with the remote. She moves the knob in the off position and Ward stops twitching.

She walks over to Ward and slaps him hard across the face. No one flinches. “Ward, wake up.” She looks over to Coulson. “He's out. How do you want to get him out of here?”

“Easy,” this comes from Hunter who grabs the chair Ward is cuff to and starts moving it towards the broken doors. “The chair has wheels.” Hunter has some trouble getting passed the broken door but Coulson grabs the chair from the front and pulls it into the hallway. 

“Any problems?” Coulson asks May.

“Nothing we couldn't handle. Are you sure you don't just want to hand him over to Talbot?”

“I will, just as soon as he tells me what he did with those Hydra agents.”

Hunter rolls the chair easily across the plush carpet to the elevator which comes after about thirty seconds. 

They must be letting people in because two people are in the elevator going up. Coulson thinks he might have do something, but instead they move to the side to let them on.

Coulson pushes the button for the top floor while Hunter pushes the chair unto the elevator. May and Skye follow. 

Someone gets on at the 30th floor and doesn't even ask why there is an unconscious man strapped to a chair. Coulson guess it's something he's used too.

He looks Coulson over. “So did you catch Dancing with the Stars last night?” 

Without a beat Coulson responds. “I like this new batch, but nothing will beat Jennifer Grey's performance.”

“I like her old nose,” he says. He looks Ward over.

“Someone getting fired?”

“Yes.”

“Can I watch?”

“Sorry, invite only.”

“Snobs,” the man says as he walks out of the elevator on the 36th floor.


	6. Awake but Sleepy.

Nothing is ever easy. Coulson had hoped to bring Ward to the base, found out what he was doing to the Hydra agents and then shipped him off to Talbot. Instead Ward remained unconscious for three days only showing signs of waking this morning. Coulson kept him locked in a separate infirmary room and in restraints. 

He opens the door of his office to find Skye waiting for him. She looks pissed.

“He’s up.” She says. Coulson remembers that the hospital room is monitored and those monitors are in plain sight.

“Yes—I don't want you there. May and I will talk to him.”

“But he might be more open to talking to me.”

“We’ll see. The last time you saw him, you shot him.”

“Doesn't matter. The psychopath's in love with me.”

“Ward's a manipulator. He may or may not be forthcoming with information. You're an ace in my hole. We'll try different interrogation methods before bringing you in.”

Skye pouts but she listens to him. When he goes to the stairs to infirmary, she doesn't follow.

Coulson walks through the various rooms at the Playground and receives stares from the other agents. Billy Koenig looks at him unhappily. Coulson hadn’t spoken to him about rescuing Ward and he knows that most of his agents would have let Hydra kill Ward. 

When he got to the infirmary Dr. Meredith Angelo is waiting outside the door of the hospital prison cell. She is their only doctor and had managed to escape Hydra when she was sick the day they took over.

“There's a problem.”

“What?”

“Better if I show you. I will warn you, he's still under pain killers and some sedation. He got agitated when he first woke up.”

“Agitated how?”

“Normal, fighting hard against the restraints—“ Angelo is interrupted when Agent Melinda May shows up. She says nothing. 

“Come inside,” Angelo says swiping her card. The door opens with a beep. Angelo goes in first followed by May. Coulson take the rear.

Ward is up. He has a bandage on his forehead and his eyes and face are puffy with bruises. He looks at his restraints and pulls at them but not hard. Coulson is worried about the restraints not holding him. Ward could be tricky. 

Coulson let Dr. Angelo go first.

Ward looks up at her and to Coulson something looks different in the Hydra agent. He looks confused.

“Hello,” Dr. Angelo says.

“Hello,” he says, he looks briefly at Coulson and longer at May but then he turns his attention back to Angelo.

“Can you tell me your name?” she asks.

Ward shakes his head gently. His eyes are half closed and his voice is weak when he says: “I don't know—“ 

“What do you remember last?” 

“I don't know,” he says again, and takes a deep breath. His voice is very weak and for a moment Coulson actually felt a little pity for him but that feeling doesn’t last long when he remembers all Ward has done. “I don't remember anything. Can you tell me what's going on? Why am I in restraints? Who are these people?” he says, looking at May and Coulson.

“I can't tell you, yet.” Angelo say. She smiles. “I need to speak with my colleagues for a few minutes.”

 

“He’s faking it,” May says as soon as they leave the room. “Ward is a master manipulator.”

“I'm not too sure,” Angelo says. 

“She's right,” Coulson agrees. “Ward could be playing us.”

“Dissociative Amnesia is a psychological disorder. He didn't hit his head. His MRI shows no damage. He went under stress so bad, he didn't want to remember.”

May looks annoyed when Coulson looks at her. Nothing about this feels right. And she didn't like the looks Coulson gives them that maybe he believes Ward isn’t faking it.

“We need to find out. Dr. Angelo, any suggestions?” Coulson asks.

“I rather just treat him. We should tell him the truth. He might remember.”

“We can’t give him an inch. He'll take it.”

“He didn't recognize you or Agent May,” Angelo says. “How about Agent Skye?”

Coulson shakes his head. “No, I'm not going to do that to her. Let's leave her for last.”

“If you really want to prove he's faking, which in me professionally opinion, he isn't, I suggest gently trying to put cracks in his facade. Look for recognition.”

“Tell him his name,” Coulson says. “But tell him nothing else. And you said he was agitated when he woke up?”

“Yes, but Ward is an aggressive person. He may not like being restrained.”

 

Meredith Angelo had never been so happy to get the flu. She cursed being in bed barely able to move. She considered herself a workaholic, which she thought was a requirement to be a SHIELD agent. 

It was perfect timing. While her agents friends and family were being slaughtered or kidnapped by Hydra, she was at home feeling seriously achy. 

For weeks she felt survivors guilt as she mourned her friends who were the closest thing she had to a family. Then she heard from Phil Coulson about a new version of SHIELD and soon she was at the Playground. She was never so happy when Sam Koenig gave her a lanyard and a new ID.

As a doctor she is always impartial to treating people. Good or bad it didn't matter.

And Grant Ward had been bad. He worked for Hydra, killed several SHIELD agents including Victoria Hand who while Meredith hadn't been particularly close to, she looked up to her.

Still when she goes in the room, she feels a pang of sympathy for him. Ward might be a manipulator but John Garrett was 20 times worse. 

He looks up at her when she comes in but doesn't smile.

He lifts his restraints and she thinks he might say something about them but doesn't.

“Hello,” she says. “How are you feeling?”

“Achy,” he says. “Sleepy.”

“I had to put you on strong pain killers.”

“Who were those people?”

“No one to be concerned about now. You really don't know who you are?”

He shakes his head. “Do you?”

Meredith wants to tell him, but she's under orders. “There is a limit to what I can tell you. Only your name. It's Grant Ward.”

“Doesn't even ring a bell? Do I know you?”

“We've met once or twice. I'm Dr. Meredith Angelo.” Actually three times. Two times she had to sew up his wrists, one time when they had to sedate him from slamming his head against the wall. All three times Meredith told Coulson the attempts weren't in earnest because if Ward wanted to kill himself he would have. She agreed with Coulson that the attempts were for sympathy, but sometimes she thinks they were a cry for help. 

“Why am I in restraints?”

“Orders from above. I can tell you anything about your injuries. I'm not allowed to let you out of your restraints.” 

Ward seems to accept her explanation at least for now. It also might have to do with the heavy pain killers.

“What happened to me?”

“You were beaten pretty severely. You have three broken ribs and various contusions.”

“Is that why I can't remember who I am? It's weird because I remember everything else. I can speak other languages too.“ 

“I don't think that's it. I think you have dissociative amnesia. You were so traumatized by what happened. You forgot.”

“But why did I forget everything?” He blinks his eyes. They look heavy.

“I don't know.”

“But my memories should come back?”

“They should as you recover.”

“I suppose you can't tell me who beat me up?”

Meredith shakes her head. “The best thing now is for you to rest and recover. Deep breathing even though it hurts.”

“What about the restraints?” he says, pulling on them. “I don't see myself getting out of this bed anytime soon.”

“Sorry, they have stay on for the time being.”

She looks at Ward's face. He looks frustrated, but not angry.


	7. Faking It?

“I think we should put him right back into Vault D,” May says. They are alone in Coulson’s office, discussing how to best prove Ward is faking. “I’m sure he’ll get desperate again to talk and then we'll find out about those missing Hydra agents.”

“If Ward is faking it, he's playing a game,” Coulson replies. “We might have to play that game to find out what's going on.”  
“This is a bad idea, Phil and you know it. We should have never rescued him in the first place.”

Coulson doesn't respond. He has a feeling the other agents are feeling the same way. However he's convinced he needs to find out what Ward is up too.

“We’ll start with something small.”

“What?”

“With Fitz?”

“Phil—“ her voice actually goes it. “I don’t think that’s a good idea either. You know what happened last time they met. And it may be too much for Fitz.”

“I don’t think he’s going to try to kill him.”

“Phil—“ May pauses, and looks unsure about what to say. “Please reconsider all this. It’s a bad idea. Everything about Ward is a bad idea.”

“I know—“ they are interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Dr. Angelo comes in and takes a seat across Coulson and next to May. 

“How is he?”

“Hell recover. The memories will probably come back. There's something else you should know.”

“What?”

“His tox screen came back. He's on two powerful anti-psychotics.”

Coulson looks confused for a moment. “What could that mean?”

Dr. Angelo shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe he realized his violent tendencies.”

“Do you really think he isn't faking it?” Coulson asks. This new development just made things more confusing. 

“I don't know what kind of purpose that would serve.”

“To see Skye?” May says.

“Again, he would probably realize that Director Coulson wouldn't let him see her.”

“How long before he recovers enough that we can put him back into the vault?” May asks.

“I would say about 2 weeks. I want his ribs to heal but my main concern now is keeping him in restraints. We can't keep him like that for two weeks.”

“I don't see why not?” May said.

“It would be bad for his health.”

“And the problem would be—“

“How long could we keep him in them,” Coulson asks. 

“I would suggest no more than 6 hours at a time and that's pushing it.”

“How long should he be out of them?”

“Two hours if possible. Let him eat, use the restroom, walk somewhat.”

“May, I want you to take care of that.”

“Be Ward's babysitter, not going to happen.”

“No, I need you to ice him the minute he steps out of line and shoot him if he steps out of hand.”

There is a light tapping at his door. 

“Come in.”

Skye walks in followed by Fitz. She takes a seat before she says anything, but Coulson can see the young agent is anxious to talk.

Fitz sits as well, looking confused. 

“I don't know if you've heard, but Ward is claiming to have amnesia.”

“I don't think it’s a claim,” Angelo said. 

“Dr. Angelo doesn't think he's faking it, but I'm not sure.”

“I can go rough him up,” Skye says. “Dig the truth out of him.”

“That’s the last thing I want to do. Skye, I don't want you anywhere near him, ever. If he is faking it, you might be the reason why.”

“So why am I—um—here?” Fitz asks.

“You wont like it.”

“Try me.”

“I want you and May to try to break down Ward's visage. Look for cracks. Look to see if he's faking it.”

Fitz doesn't respond right away and Coulson isn't sure what he's thinking. 

“I’ll do it,” he finally says. 

“Are you sure?” He expected resistance from the young engineer.

“I—um-- want to know what that bastard's up too.” He looks at May. “We can play good cop, bad cop.”

“I assume I'm the bad cop.”

 

When May comes in with Dr. Angelo, she doesn't like that Ward stares at her. Instead of looking at him, she looks at the doctor and nods.

Dr. Angelo goes to the bed and begins to loosen the restraints starting with the ankle ones. 

“What's going on?” Ward asks. His voice still sounds weak.

“You are getting a two hour respite from the restraints for good behavior,” Angelo explains. “I want you to try and walk about the room, use the bathroom, shower if you want too. Lunch is also coming. You'll have to walk with the IV pole.”

“And her?” he asks as Dr. Angelo removes his wrist restraints. She begins unhooking other wires so he could get up. 

“To shoot you if you get out of line,” May says. She puts her hands on her holster. 

Ward raises his arms. To May, he actually looks frightened. Even though he is free, he makes no move to stand up. He just looks at May.

“What?” she finally snaps.

“You look familiar. Do I know you?”

“Just do what the doctor tells you. Do not deviate for a second or you will found yourself right back into those restraints.”

“Okay—“ 

“You were unconscious for three days, you might have some trouble walking. Let me know if you need some help.”

Ward swings his feet around the bed. He wavers in his seat for a few moments. He looks up at May as if he needs an order.

“You okay?” Dr. Angelo asks. 

“Yeah,” he says, taking a deep breath. “Just a little woozy.” He squeezes both his hands tightly. “And some tingling in my hands.” 

“Probably from the restraints. Come on,” she offers her arm. Ward doesn't take it. Angelo realizes what he is looking at: his scarred wrist. He touches his scar as if it doesn't exist. 

“It was a while ago,” Angelo explains but she doesn't elaborate. “Come on—“ she puts her arm out again. This time Ward takes it and plants his feet on the floor.

In one motion, he stands up while holding on the bed with one hand and Angelo in the other.

He lets go of the bed and takes a slow step. He releases her hand and takes another tentative step. May stands by the door watching his every move. The room is relatively small and the bathroom door is open. Ward slowly walks to it. Sometimes making a grimace as he takes small steps. 

“You need to leave the door open,” May said. 

He doesn't respond but he goes into the bathroom without shutting the door.


	8. He's a lying liar who lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos and comments. I'll post more chapters on the weekend since I work fulltime.

“He said he recognized me,” May was in Coulson’s office. 

“What did you say?”

“I told him nothing.”

“Any break in the visage?”

May shrugs her shoulder but her blank expression doesn’t change but Coulson knows she doesn’t like doing this. “He was a perfect gentlemen and patient which is why I’m suspicious.” 

“May, I need to find out what he was doing before Hydra kidnapped him. Even if this is a game, maybe we should play along.”

“Phil, the last time we played Ward’s game, it was bad for everyone.” 

“I will make sure that doesn’t happen. We know who he is now.”

“So we should untie him and see if he tries to escape?”

Coulson shakes his head. “But we should give him some controlled changes.”

“Like what?” She looks at Coulson suspiciously. 

“Let’s play it by ear.”

“Fitz is going to visit him in an hour. I don’t think he’s ready.”

“He’s not in a cell, so he can’t suffocate him.”

“Or put a pillow over his face—”

Coulson looks frustrated. For a short time, they were outs in their long standing friendship, but eventually he learned to trust her again and to tell her everything going on. He knows that if she were in charge Ward would be dead regardless of what information he had. 

“I don’t think he will. Fitz has grown. He doesn’t even get upset with Simmons went on an assignment.”

“When is she due back?”

“Next week.”

“She’s not going to be happy either.”

 

Fitz stands by the door taking in deep breaths. He hasn’t seen Ward since he escaped. 

He has to push his anger inside to try to make peace with this. Try to reconcile that he is a SHIELD agent first and his personal feelings shouldn’t affect him. 

His role right now is to play janitor. He has a jumpsuit he borrowed from Mac, a broom and a garbage can. Clean the room and see if Ward reacts to him. That is all he has to do.

He takes another deep breath and opened the door. He tells himself to remember the time they were in Russia. It was good then. They had laughs and Fitz thought Ward had started to respect him. Of course the whole thing was an act.

The bed is only a few feet from the door, so he can see the prone figure in the bed with his eyes closed. Fitz looks him over for a moment, takes in the feelings of confusion and hate. He has wanted to hate Ward for betraying the team and for what he did, but part of him still remembers the Ward of old. The one that bonded with him. The one that jumped out of an airplane to save Simmons. He might have done it to integrate himself with the team, but still Simmons is alive because of it.

Fitz let the door close loudly and Ward opens his eyes. He looks at Fitz with no recognition.

“Sorry,” Fitz says. He keeps anger out of his voice. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Not a problem.”

“I’m here to clean the room,” he says. He feels awkward and wonders if this is a good idea.

“Clean away. I wish I can help.” Ward tries to smile but doesn’t make it. He lifts up his arms to show the restraints.

Fitz pushes the broom and sweeps up dirt that isn’t really there. He pretends to put invisible dirt into the garbage. When he looks at the bed again, Ward is staring.

“Sorry,” he says and looks away. “I didn’t mean to stare, I’m just bored out of my mind.”

Fitz doesn’t reply. He wonders if he should say something.

“I assume you can’t tell me who I am or why I’m in restraints, but are you allowed to talk to me?”

“They didn’t say not too,” he said, stuttering slightly.

The stutter doesn’t faze Ward.

“I’m Grant—At least that’s who they said I am.”

“I’m Leo.”

“I’d shake but I can’t.”

“It’s okay, I can’t use my right arm correctly.”

“Sorry—did something happen?”

“It was an accident but I don’t want to bored you with the details.”

“Leo,” Ward says and this time he manages to smile. “I’m already bored.”

“It’s nothing—I don’t really like to talk about it.”

Ward nods. “I understand. I can’t remember a single thing I like. I know about football, I even remember the team names, but I don’t know which ones I liked.”

“I’m not that into Football.” 

“More of a soccer fan?”

Fitz doesn’t answer his question. “I need to finish.”

“Yes, of course, stay with your work I’ll just continue to concentrate on my foot.”

Now Fitz is curious. “You’re foot?”

“Yes,” he says looking at his left foot. “I can’t figure out why I have all these circular scars on it.”


	9. Seeing things

“AC, remember when we first met and you gave Ward that truth telling stuff, why don't you gave it to him now?”

Coulson doesn't respond. 

“Jeez, it really doesn't exist?“ Skye rolls back her chair looking disappointed. 

“Jemma might be able to make up some sodium pentothal,” Fitz says. looking down at the floor. It had been two days and the only person Ward seems to recognize is May. Even asking her name until she told him to shut up.

“Fitz, what do you think?”

Fitz hunches his shoulder. If it hadn’t been Ward, he would have found it actually fun to be around him.  
“He hasn’t slipped. All we talk about is American football and sometimes regular football. He seems umm—personable.”

“What about you, May?” he asks his second in command. “He seems fixated on you.”

“He's faking it and I’ll figure it out,” she says. Coulson could hear annoyance in her voice. 

Before Coulson has a chance to respond, the door bursts open revealing Mack. 

“Sorry, director, you got to see this.”

“What is it?”

“It’s that guy Ward, he's going all sorts of crazy.” 

Coulson looks at May who gives him a ‘I told you so’ look. 

 

May isn’t sure what she would find but what she does surprises her.

Ward is still secured to the bed. His head is facing away from door. When she moves around the bed, she can see his eyes are tightly closed. Dr. Angelo is right besides the bed.

“What’s going on?” May asks. She keeps her gun holstered since Ward is still restrained. 

“Nothing—“Angelo says. “He wore up and hallucinated something“ She touches Ward’s shoulder “Grant—no one is there.”

He opens his eyes. They dart around the room. When he is done, he looks relieved. “But I saw him, plain as day—“ 

“Who did you see?” Angelo asks. 

“A man-- white with brown hair.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No—but he wasn’t there, then he was, now he’s gone.”

“It’s just a hallucination. Probably your memory coming back.”

Ward settles back into the bed. 

Dr. Angelo looks at May.

“Since you’re here, we might as well let him out.”

May doesn’t say anything, but she nods. DeAngelo loosens the restraints and Ward rubs his wrists again looking over the scars. He makes no attempt to move quickly.

“I wish you would tell me what’s going on,” he says. 

“In time. I need to make sure you’re fully recovered before we start talking about who you are.”

“It’s bad. Isn’t it?” He looks at her and then May with his scared brown eyes. “But if you think I’m going to kill myself, I’m not.”

“Don’t worry about that now. Why don’t you get up and walk around.”

Ward swings his feet around the bed slowly. The bruises on his face are beginning to fade. May hopes this means he has recovered and they can put him back into the vault.

Although if this was an act, Ward was Olivier.

 

When Fitz comes in the next day, Ward is more subdued with his head turned to the wall instead of looking straight ahead.

“Hi,” Fitz says, quietly. Ward turns around. He doesn’t smile but he seems glad to see him. 

“Hi, Leo.” 

“Are you okay?”

“I think I figured out where I am.”

“Oh.”

“I’m in a prison ward of a psychiatric hospital, aren’t I?”

Fitz doesn’t respond.

“I know, I know, you’re not allow to tell me for some reason, but I think I must have done something awful. My body has scars from bullet and the one on my right side looks fairly new.”

“I’m just the janitor,” Fitz says and starts sweeping the floor.

Ward doesn’t respond. He looks away again at the wall.

“I think I’m crazy, Leo—is that it? I see a man who isn’t there. The doctor says it’s a figment of my past, but you would think the pleasant memories would come back first, but this man. He terrifies me but I feel some love for him too. Maybe he’s my father. Do you know if I have a family? Are they worried about me?”

Fitz stops sweeping. He has never heard Ward ever admit he is scared of anyone.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ve said too much. I know you aren’t allowed to say anything. I’m going crazy because they won’t tell me anything, not you, or Dr. Angelo or Kara.”

Fitz pauses and looks up. Ward does too. Fitz isn’t sure if he should ask but decides to. 

“Who is Kara?”

“The guard, the mean one. I don’t know why, but I know her. She always mean but I don’t remember her that way.”

“Her name isn’t Kara.”

“The name fits but you’re right, she’s different from Kara. It’s weird. I know her, but I don’t know her as mean and Kara, when I see her in my dreams, she has something on her face.”

Fitz doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know who this Kara is and why Ward was associating her with May. Instead he continues sweeping.

“Leo?” He looks up again. 

“Yes?”

“I don’t know how much sway you have—“ Fitz thinks this is out. He’s about to make a move, instead he says. “But do you think that maybe I can get a television in here or something. The conversations with you are the highlight of my day.”

“Oh—I can ask.”

Suddenly Ward jumps. He immediately stares at the door and seems to be avoiding the foot of his bed. 

Fitz looks at the same spot but nothing is there.

“He’s here, Leo.” Fitz doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know if this is real or a game of Ward. Ward sounds terrified.

“Should I get Dr. Angelo?”

“I just want him to go away. He just looks at me—Never saying anything.”

“May you can try talking to him.”

Ward shakes his head. “I don't know why but I don't want too.”


	10. Chapter 10

“I think he’s fine to put back into the vault,” is the first thing May says as soon as Coulson opens up the meeting. She is sitting in Coulson’s office along with Fitz and Dr. Angelo.

“I said two weeks. Stop trying to rush him into jail.” May doesn’t acknowledge Dr. Angelo’s annoyance. Coulson understands why May is so eager to put Ward somewhere more secure, but he isn’t so sure himself.

“And we’re almost there. He seems to have recovered from his injuries. His memories can come in the vault. It would be more secure. I don’t like any of this. ”

“He’s hall— hall—hallucinating,” Fitz says.

May focuses on Fitz. “Unless he’s making it up,” Then she looks at Coulson. “He’s looking for sympathy.”

“I don’t think he is.”

“Fitz?” Coulson looks at the young engineer. May says nothing but looks surprised.

“I don’t think he’s making it up. I really think he’s lost his memory. Look just because he’s evil, it doesn’t mean he’s lying.”

“He’s a double agent, Fitz,” May finally says. “Acting is his forte.”

“Ward—Umm-- whether he is SHIELD or Hydra, he was always reserved. Not really social or a people person. A normal double agent would a likeable person or at least act the part. Ward can’t act that. The man I’ve been talking to. He’s personable and friendly. And the only one he seems to have to be—um—fam—know is May, except he thinks her name is Kara.”

“Fitz, be careful. You were burned before.”

“I know. I mean you could be right. This could be some kind of con, but I don’t know.”

“We’ll leave him in the infirmary for now,” Coulson says. May made a face but didn’t say anything. “Dr. Angelo, what about these hallucinations he’s having?”

“He was on two powerful anti-psychotics. It’s possible this is withdrawal. I think it might be a good idea to put him back on them.”

“And this man he keeps seeing he doesn’t know who he is?”

“I know who he is,” Fitz says.

“Who?”

“John Garrett. It has to be. He said he was someone that he both feared and loved.”

Coulson doesn’t say anything for a moment. He had never thought Ward was afraid of Garrett. While he never thinks he will forgive Ward for betraying the team, he understands his loyalty to his leader. He looks to Dr. Angelo. “And the anti-psychotics may stop the hallucinations?”

“Yes—And if he’s dangerous, even with the lost memory they will help control his behavior.”

“I want to try something. I want you to offer him to sleep tonight without the restraints.”

“Are you sure about that?” May asks. 

“He’ll be monitored.”

“He’s asking a lot about his past,” Fitz says. “He thinks he’s in a prison psych ward.”

“Let him think that. May when is Simmons due back?”

“They should be back by Sunday.”

“If we aren’t sure Ward is telling the truth, we might want to try the Memory Machine.”

“Phil, that’s a bad idea. Remember what happened to you and you’re well put together.”

“Director Coulson, she’s right.” Dr. Angelo says. “I wouldn’t recommend it. Not yet. I would tell him the truth first.”

 

Ward looks surprised when Dr. Angelo comes in right before lights out. She has a rolling cart with two cups. May stands behind her, but says nothing. Ward doesn’t look to the foot of the bed. Dr. Angelo thinks he’s still hallucinating.

“Hi, Grant, how are you doing?”

He hunches his shoulders. “As best as expected.”

He seems surprised when she starts removing his restraints.

“For good behavior, we’ve decided you can sleep without restraints. You will be monitored though. The restraints come back in the morning.”

“Thank you,” he says, sounding relieved. A bit of happiness creeps into his voice. “It’s been hard to sleep.”

“There are some conditions. You have to take this.” She hands him the paper cup with two pills inside.

“What are these?”

“They are anti-psychotics.”

Ward’s face is blank. “At least I know what I’m in for.”

“Your behavior in the past has been less than stellar. I also think the pills will get rid of your hallucinations.” She hands him the water. He takes the pills without hesitation.

“Open your mouth,” May says “And lift up your tongue.” Ward obeys her.

As soon as he finishes swallowing and May pulls back, he talks again. “Do you think now you can tell me what I did—I know it was something bad. But I think I’m ready to find out.”

“Not yet—but I hope soon.”

Angelo is used to Ward being compliant so she’s surprised when he shakes his head. “Why can’t you tell me?”

“I haven’t cleared you medically. You see people who aren’t there.”

“I see one man.”

“Is he here now?”

Ward doesn't respond but he answers when he stares at the foot of the bed and looks away.

That doesn’t satisfy May. “Answer the question.” 

“Yes, he’s here,” he admits in a low voice.

“Give the meds a few days to work, and then maybe we’ll talk.”

“I want a lawyer.”

“What?” Dr. Angelo asks confused. 

“I know I’m in prison. I know I did something. This is still the United States, right? I may be Charles Manson, but I have rights.”

Dr. Angelo looks frustrated. This is the first time, she has seen Ward annoyed, but the look in his eyes show he wasn’t angry. He looks more frightened. He makes no threatening moves and May stays by the door.

“You can’t have one now. Eventually you’ll know why and will understand why we waited.”

He looks down, staring at his foot. Dr. Angelo could see the small round scars on it. 

“And we’ll do something so you won’t be bored, okay? Just rest and recover and eventually you’re questions will be answered.”


	11. Movie Night

Coulson couldn't sleep, not that he ever did much of it but he tries to get a few hours a night. 

He isn't alone. He finds Fitz, Skye, and Mack watching the monitors.

“Shouldn't you all be sleeping?” he says, but he keeps his tone lighthearted. He used to seeing other Agents up late, even before Hydra.

No one responds. Coulson looks over the monitor only to see Ward sleep.

“Not exactly exciting television. ABC on Tuesdays is better.”

“It’s almost 5:30,” Skye says, “Remember when he was in the vault. He would get up every day at 5:30. Even though he didn’t have a clock.”

“He’s been behaving all night?”

“Not a peep,” Mack says.

Coulson looks at his watch. 5:27.

“Fitz, do you really think he isn't faking?”

“You don't think he's faking?” Skye asks. She gives Fitz a strange look. 

“I suppose you think he is,” Fitz replies.

“Ward is a psycho. Nothing changes that, but hey he might be a psycho that lost his memory.”

Coulson looks at his watch. 5:30 and Ward is not awake, but not waking up at 5:30 might be another cog in his weird plan.

“This doesn't mean anything,” Skye says. She looks at Coulson. “He could be faking it. I bet he is awake.”

Coulson looks at the monitor that not only showed Ward but his vitals. He was still in REM sleep. “Sorry Skye, he’s still out.”

“You should let me see him, AC, he’ll remember.”

“No, not yet.”

Skye looks disappointed. It had been a rough couple of months dealing with her powers and her father, but she was better now. Still if Ward is faking it, Coulson didn’t want to risk it. Not for Ward’s potential game.

“Why don’t you all get some sleep? It’s been nice and quiet lately. We should take advantage of it.”

Skye doesn’t respond to him instead she looked to Fitz. “You really think he isn’t faking.”

“Ward’s a liar and maybe even deranged, but this friendly outgoing personality. It isn’t him.”

“And you really think he's seeing Garrett?”

“Yes, but of all the things to remember why the man who ruined your life.”

“There is a lot of strange things going on,” Coulson says. “The hallucinations, calling May Kara, and who put him on anti-psychotics?”

“Maybe he was trying to fix himself.”

“Psychos usually don't realize they're psycho,” Skye says. She looked over the monitor. “He’s waking up. Should I get May?”

“Give him a few minutes, I want to see what he does.”

Ward yawns. He removes the blanket, moves off the bed a bit slowly. He walks to the bathroom.

“I’m so glad this feed has a nudity filter,” Skye says, but she still looks up. She smiles at Coulson. “We’ll find out what’s going on, AC” she assures him. When she looks back, Ward is brushing his teeth. 

 

“Surprise!” Fitz says. He comes into the room not with his broom but an IPAD. Ward is back in restraints. His eyes look heavy, but he actually smiles.

“You're a life saver. I owe you one. Unless I have life imprisonment without parole, I’ll buy you a beer when I get out.”

Fitz doesn't respond to that. Instead he says. “What do you want to watch?”

“Anything.”

Fitz sets up the food tray with the IPAD and brings up a streaming service. “We have Mulan?”

“Kids movie—And seen it.”

“New Adventures of Old Christine?”

He shook his head.

“How about something British? Young James Herriot, Babylon, or Gangs of Tooting Broadway?”

“I don't think so.”

“One tree Hill?”

“Maybe something funny?”

“Besides Still Waters?”

“I never even heard of that. How about a superhero movie? Batman or Superman?”

“With Christopher Reeve?”

“Saw it—I think?” 

Fitz lifts his right his hand and tries to load the movie.

“Wish I could help.”

“I got it.” He says, annoyed. He remembers he’s not supposed to think about when Ward tried to kill him.

“Leo, I didn't need to upset you. I really appreciate you getting the IPAD.”

Fitz looks at Ward who looks genuinely apologetic. He wants to believe him. He wants to believe he isn’t faking. He wants to believe he is the guy who has been nice to him for the last few days. But what he really wants to believe is that he is the Ward he used to me. Not the Hydra agent who dropped him into the ocean. Ward looks a little disturbed when Fitz doesn’t respond.

“Leo—I’m sorry, I really am.”

“No—It was an accident. My brain didn’t get enough oxygen. It messed me up.”

Ward looks serious. “I'm sorry, really. I wish there was something I could do. You and Dr. Angelo are the only ones nice to me but I think you’re the only one being honest.” Fitz feels bad. He suddenly wishes Coulson hadn’t volunteered him to do this. 

“I wish I could tell you the truth, but it's not my call.”

“I know but I do think you're more than I lowly janitor.”

“You figured me out. I do most of the odd jobs here. You know—Budget cuts.”

Ward smiles.

“Is the man gone?” Fitz asks.

“Yes—“ he says. “And I think the meds are beginning to work. Will you stay and watch with me?”

Fitz almost wants too, but he shakes his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for all the kudos. I always thought that if Fitz hadn't gotten brain damaged, he might have been the only one on the team who would reach out to Ward. I could see them playing board games in the vault.


	12. A bit of a Bang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think my story just went AU.

Chapter 12  
Even though Coulson left word that Simmons should come directly to his office, it was obvious that she had seen the video monitors because she came in shouting.

“What the hell is going on?” Simmons had always been timid until her time with Hydra. And she had become very protective of Fitz. Even though the friendship they shared had fizzled.

“There’s a reason I wanted you to come up here before watching the monitors,” he stands up and touches her shoulder to help calm her down. He knew she would be mad.

“Fitz. Is. Talking. To. Ward,” she says. “Not only talking but they are joking around. Did we find alternative universe Ward, who didn’t join Hydra and nearly kill Fitz?”

“A lot happen while you were gone. Short story, Ward has amnesia—maybe and he's been kidnapping Hydra agents for some reason. We've been spending the last week trying to find it out if he’s faking it.” 

“He is.”

Coulson shakes his head. “He might not be. You haven’t been here the last two weeks. Ward is hallucinating Garrett, he thinks May is someone named Kara, and someone put him on anti-psychotics. There is something going on here.”

"There is,” she says. Coulson hears an anger in her voice. “Ward is playing us.”

She leaves the room quickly and slams the door. 

Coulson thinks about going after her, but decides not too. He decides to let her cool down first.

 

“So what do you want to watch tonight? I’ve never seen Breaking Bad. Have you?”

Ward shakes his head. He looks tired tonight. Fitz believes it's from spending so much time in the restraints.

“The man's not here, is he?”

Ward shakes his head again. “I think the medication Dr. Angelo is working but it's also making me tired.”

“I could go. Let you rest.”

“No—I enjoy your company. I sleep about 15 hours a day. That's all I really do. I wish my memory would come back or someone would at least tell me what I’ve done. I think I’m well enough.”

“I could talk to the guards—um—maybe they can let us play a board game or something.”

Ward actually lets out a slight smile. “I would like that. Do I like board games?”

They are interrupted when the door opens with a loud bang. Fitz knows it's too early to be lights out and is surprised to see Simmons. Fitz says nothing because he is thrown off by the anger in her face.

Ward reacts but only to the bang. He jumps like he is startled. He shows no recollection of Simmons but a curious look crosses his face.

Fitz continues to say nothing and wonders if this is part of some plan of Coulson’s.

Simmons says nothing to Ward or Fitz. She nabs a nearby chair. At first Fitz thinks she's going to place it by the bed, but instead she pushes it against the door. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a gun and places it against Ward’s temple. Ward freezes completely. Fitz could see terror in his face.

“I told you if I ever saw you again, I would kill you.”

“Jemma—“ Simmons doesn't release the gun but she looks over to Fitz. “What are you doing?”

Simmons doesn't respond, she looks back over to Ward. He is frozen in his spot. He makes no move against the restraints.

“I don’t know what you're up too.” 

Ward takes gulps of breaths. Fitz could see sweat forming on his brow. “I’m not up to anything.”

“Jemma, please, stop this. It’s not helping.”

She keeps the gun at Ward’s head. There is banging at the door but she doesn’t move the chair.

“Fitz, I can’t believe you, after all he’s done, you’re acting like his best friend.”  


“Jemma—he doesn’t remember. Just put down the gun.”

“No--,” she says, keeping the gun pointed at Ward’s head. “Not until he admits he’s lying.”

“Please,” Ward pleads. “I don’t know who you are. I don't know what I’ve done, but I’m sorry. Please don’t shoot me.”

“You’re sorry?” she said and waves the gun around. “You’re sorry, after all the people you killed and what you did to Fitz.”

Ward looks straight at Fitz. He is terrified but something else was in his face, guilt.

“Oh god,” he says. “Leo, I'm so sorry.”

“Shut up,” Simmons says.

Ward closes his eyes and moves his head down.

“Jemma—don’t please. He really doesn't remember.”

She doesn’t say anything. She points the gun at his head again. The banging on the door gets louder. She pulls back the hammer. Fitz moves to intercept.

Instead, at the last second, she shoots the gun into the air.

Ward jumps as far as he can with the restraints. Fitz thinks his heart will leave his chest.

Simmons says nothing more as she calmly puts the gun away and removes the chair. She opens the door before May does. May says nothing. Simmons walks out allowing both May and Dr. Angelo to come in.

Fitz looks at Ward, but neither men say anything, and then he runs out the door after her.

Dr. Angelo rushes over to bed.

“Are you okay?”

He doesn’t respond. He takes a deep breath and throws up on his scrubs.

“Sorry,” he says in a low voice. “I didn’t mean too— I didn’t mean to do anything.“

“It’s okay,” She starts undoing the restraints. “Go get yourself cleaned up.”


	13. True and Lies

“Simmons, what the hell was that?” Coulson is waiting for her by the monitoring stations. No one else is there. He must have cleared them out. Simmons always knew Coulson to be calm and collected but now he looked mad.

“You wanted to know if he was lying or not. He's not.”

Now Coulson looks frustrated. 

Simmons hears footsteps behind her. She doesn't turn around because she knows it is Fitz. Coulson gives a sharp look over her shoulder and the walking stops but she can still feel him behind her.

“Why? Because you held a gun to his head? Confession under duress is not always true.”

“No—“ she touches the monitor and rewinds it. She turns the sound down and points to Ward’s vitals rather than the video.

“Ward’s had guns pointed at him for a long time. I doubt he ever broke a sweat. But when I held the gun to his head, he acted like that's never happened before. He got sweaty, his breath got shallow.” She points the monitor. “His adrenaline went up, his heart rate went up. He went into a flight or fight response. And his response was fright. The Ward we knew, fear always meant fight. He was terrified, sir.”

Coulson’s anger diminished, slightly.

“There were probably better ways to do it.”

“It was quick and got results.”

Simmons hears footsteps behind her. These are softer, a woman.

“Are we done, director?” says the voice of Dr. Angelo. “Did you get the answers you needed?”

“We're done.”

“I gave him a sedative. He'll be out for a little while, but I think tomorrow you need to tell him the truth.”

“How is going to handle being told he's a psychopath?” Coulson asks

“He's not.”

“Not handle?”

“No, he's not a psychopath.”

“Dr. Angelo, Ward’s killed at least a dozen people, good people.”

“A psychopath has no remorse.”

“Could have fooled me,” Coulson says.

“A psychopath doesn't realize they're one. And they don't decide to take medication. Someone with dissociative amnesia blocks out painful memories. Ward didn’t just block out being tortured by hydra, he blocked out his entire life.”

“Except for May and Garrett.”

“But he thinks May is a woman named Kara and I can't explain why he sees Garrett.”

Coulson shakes his head. “No, I believe that he has lost his memory, but something funny is going on. Even if Ward isn't a psychopath, I don’t think he decided to take that medication on his own and he was up to something with those Hydra agents. Kara? I thinking that is Kara Lynn Palamas, agent 33 who went to work for Hydra and who I think was the agent that looks like May. They were both gone after we killed Whitehall.”

“And they teamed up?” Simmons asks. “To do what?”

“That is what I need to find out. Dr. Angelo, I will tell Ward everything tomorrow, but we'll use the memory machine on him.”

“Are you sure, sir?”

“I want to know what he's up too.” Coulson looks around at his agents. Fitz looks like he wants to talk to Simmons. Angelo looks beat. “Why don't you all take a break? Walk away from this for a little while.”

Simmons walks away. When she goes to the kitchen to get some coffee, Fitz follows.

“Jemma-- what—What just happened?”

Simmons looks at him as she often had since his accident, almost with pity. Fitz knew she felt guilty over what happened. That she survived with out injury and he didn't.

“I could ask you the same thing. You know what Ward did to you.”

“Every time I wake up. But I—I’m still a shield agent. I'm careful and Coulson knows what he's doing.”

“Fitz—Ward may not remember who he is, but he can’t change who he really is. We learned that first hand.”

“I know, but something is different now.”

“You don't believe me. What? You believe Dr. Angelo’s mumbo jumbo about him not being a psychopath. He's a classic case.”

“But she's right. He didn't suffer a head injury. He doesn't want to remember. It’s a sign of—“ he pauses but not because he forgot the word but that he thinks Simmons doesn’t want to hear it. “Remorse.”

“Fitz— Have you forgiven him?”

Fitz shakes his head. The problem is he can't really forgive Ward, not yet. Ward took everything from Fitz. 

“But it's not a matter of forgiven him. When he remembers, he is going to have to deal with it. I need to deal with moving on. Becoming the person I should be without anger.” 

“Before Ward dump us in the ocean. You were sure he was brainwashed or something. Do you still believe that?”

“I don't know. I agree with Coulson. There is something weird going on.”

 

“Wake up, kid.” Ward wakes suddenly. His head feels woozy. It takes him a moment to get his bearings. He blinked his eyes a few time and looks at the bottom of the bed.

He hasn't seen the man for the last two days but now he is standing at the foot of the bed. Ward's eyes widened. This is the first time he talks.

“Don't say anything,” he says. “Otherwise they'll think you're crazy.” He makes the crazy sign with his fingers.

He thinks he's dreaming. The room is still dark, but there are dim lights so he could find his way to the bathroom.

“I want you to put the chair in front of the door like that woman did yesterday.”

Ward doesn't know why but he get up out of the bed and puts the chair against the door making sure it’s under the knob.

“Go to the bathroom. You'll need light for this.”

This all feel like a dream, when he walks to the bathroom. Before he knows it, the lights were on, and he is in front of the mirror. He doesn't look good. Faded bruises were all over his face including his eyes. He touches the puffy tissue and it hurts a little. He needs a shave as he touches the stubble.

The man is behind him.

“You know what to do. We've been through this before. You are nothing but a weakness, Ward. She should have shot you last night.”

Ward isn’t angry at what he says, but still he balls up his hand into a fist. For a split second he thinks about turning around and punching the man. Instead he punches the mirror hard. Fragments shattered around his fist and spill into the sink. Glass cuts his knuckles, but he doesn't feel the pain.

“Oh, that’s a nice one there,” the man says, pointing to the sink.

Ward picks up a large shard in the center of the sink. He looks at this reflection in it. He barely notices the banging on the door.

“Go on, you’re weak and you know you have to do it.”

He looks over the scar on his wrist.

“Come on.”

Ward pushes the tip of the shard hard into his left wrist where the scar is. He grimaces but keeps going, mesmerized by the blood that comes out.

“Keep on digging,” the man says.

He isn't even aware of what he's doing. Doesn't even feel the pain. He moves the shard back and forth. He thinks the world is shaking.

He hears a loud bang and everything stops. The man vanishes. A moment later the bathroom door flies open and he sees a woman he doesn’t know yet he feels like he should. He recognizes Dr. Angelo behind her along with Kara. A white man with stubble is behind them.

He drops the shard. It shatters on the floor. Blood drips all over his arm.

He looks over the woman he had never seen before. She looks at him in anger and hatred but he doesn't know why. He doesn't know what to say. He feels like a child being caught doing something bad.

“He said I should do it.” 

The woman keeps stares at him, but steps aside for Dr. Angelo who takes his not injured arm. 

“Come back to bed, Grant.”

He lets her lead him. Walking slowly out of the bathroom and back to the bed. Kara and the stubble man move out of the way and say nothing. Even Kara doesn’t look that mean but the other woman, he can't stop looking at her. 

He sits on the bed without being ordered. Dr. Angelo takes his wrist to look it over. 

“Deep but you didn't hit the artery.”

“He told me to dig deep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the love. Next chapter will be posted Friday.


	14. The Truth Hurts

When Coulson opens the door to his office, he is ready to yell, but seeing the confused faces of Skye, May, Fitz, Angelo, and Hunter make him stop.

He takes a deep breath and pushed his anger down. Into the pit where he keeps his anger at Fury for not letting him die.

“What happened?”

“He tried to cut his wrist open,” Angelo explains. “Skye busted open the door.”

Coulson looks at his protégé. “He saw you?”

She nods. He can't read her. Her face is blank. “AC, It was so freaking weird. He looked at me, stared at me, but it look like the lights were on but no one was home. He kept saying the man told him to do it.”

“Garrett told him to kill himself.”

Skye nods.

“Did you sedate him?” he asked Angelo.

“Didn't have too. He just went back to bed like it was all a dream.”

“I didn't put him back into restraints,” May says. “Not with the wound on his wrist, but I cuffed his good hand to the bed.”

“I guess this isn’t a good time to talk to him.”

“Actually, I think you should,” Angelo says. “When he’s awake.” Coulson looks at her in confusion.

“Doc,” Skye says. “I don't think he's ready to learn he's a psycho.”

Dr. Angelo gives her a sharp look but doesn’t respond. Instead she looks to Coulson. “I think that the torture, the amnesia, seeing Garrett. They are all connected. I think he’s losing touch with reality. I think you need to tell him the truth to ground him.”

The chair is gone and there is some damage to the door, but it still closes and locks. 

He is still cuffed to the bed, but facing the wall when Coulson comes in. He doesn’t turn around. 

Coulson has a folder. He places it on the bed but Ward still doesn’t turn around. . Angelo said that he was up and lucid again, but had also remembered what happened last night. 

“Here to torture me again?” he says.

“No—just to talk.”

Ward finally turns over and looks at him in surprised. Coulson can now see his bandaged wrists and bloodied knuckles.

“Are you the boss?”

“Yes.”

“Am I in some place like Gitmo?”

“Sort of.”

Ward tries to sit up. The best way he can’t with the cuff. Phil walks around and unlocks it. He doesn’t fear the specialist now and he told May to stay outside. 

Ward rubs his wrist while getting comfortable. Eventually sitting Indian style on the bed. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll escape and shoot up the place?”

“No.” He doesn’t want to be nice. He is so angry at Ward for his betrayal but he’s especially angry at his lack of remorse afterwards.

“So who am I? I already know I’m someone bad. I hurt Leo. Everyone except Leo and Dr. Angelo seem to hate me. That woman yesterday wanted to kill me.”

“My name is Phil Coulson and I run an organization called SHIELD. We kind of an international NSA but its more like earth defense. Do you remember the Siege of Manhattan?”

“I know who the Avengers are, but not who I am.”

“We’re set up to try to assist the superheroes and do some of the clean up.”

“I’m not an alien, am I?”

“No.”

“Am I a hulk or something?”

This time Coulson laughs. It’s been a while since he had a laugh with Ward.

“About a year ago, we discovered that a terrorist organization by the name of Hydra had infiltrated SHIELD at the highest level. They had cells everywhere.”

Ward looks away. Coulson could see he already figured it out.

“So I’m a terrorist.”

“Yes.”

“But I’m American.”

“You were born here, yes, but so were a lot of Hydra agents. A little more than a year ago, Hydra made their presence known. Captain America managed to take a lot of them down, but not before killed a lot of SHIELD agents.”

“And I killed people.”

“Yes?”

“A lot of good people?”

“Yes.”

“So I work with this group Hydra and you captured me, but I got amnesia.”

“That’s where the hard part comes in.”

Coulson goes over to the table and grabs the folder. He opens it up and hands Ward a picture. Ward takes it and worry crosses his face.

“It’s him. Who is he?”

“His name was John Garrett. He was also a Hydra double agent. You were very loyal to him almost to what thought was insanity. You even once said you were more loyal to John Garrett than Hydra. He’s dead now. We thought that maybe with him dead, you might give us intel. You did in piecemeal. Then you escaped SHIELD custody and rejoined Hydra.”

“Wow,” he said. “I sound like a winner. And during that time, I must have done some awful things to the people here, to Leo. Why was he talking to me if I hurt him?”

“The people that hate you. It’s because you used to be one of us. We were your team, almost like family, and you betrayed us.”

Ward looks down. He focuses his eyes on Garrett’s picture. Coulson feels bad only because the man in front of him is Grant Ward, but all his crimes are new.

“Are you okay to go on?”

He nods

“When we last met, one of my agents shot you but it’s obvious you survived. We didn’t realize you went off with this woman.” Coulson handed him another picture. He had no pictures of Kara wearing May’s face, so he hands him of a picture from her SHIELD days.

“She’s very pretty, but I don’t know her.”

“Her name is Kara Lynn Palamas. Kara was wearing May’s face when May electrocuted her. She works for Hydra too but it looks like when she got electrocuted, part of May’s face stuck to her.”

Ward doesn’t respond. He doesn’t look angry, just blank. If Coulson didn’t hate him so much, he would say he had enough.

“Shall I go on?”

“Why not.” There is some annoyance in his voice, but Coulson doesn’t think it’s directed at him.

“And you were gone. For a long time. We actually thought you died. Then one day I get this surprised call from a high up at Hydra of all places, gloating at me that they caught a shield double agent.”

Ward looks at him now.

“She thought you were working for Shield. Kidnapping Hydra agents for some reason. She thought she got a prize and was gloating about it. Ward, you were not working for Shield. You and Kara were doing something with Hydra agents and the reason why you’re not in prison now is I want to know what.”

“You rescued me from Hydra?”

“Yes—not after they tortured you. A lot. You woke up with no memory but we had to figure out if you were acting. Now you’ll understand why.”

Ward took a deep breath in.

He looked away.

“Ward?”

He looks at Coulson. 

“If your amnesia is from remorse, you’ll want to help us find those agents.”

“But I don’t remember.”

“We have a machine than can help you with that.”

Ward ignores what he says. “Do I have a family?”

“You have two brothers and a sister. Your brother Christian and your parents were killed in a suspicious fire.”

“Suspicious?” He takes a deep breath. “Did I do that too?”

“Possibly.”

Ward moves his head back and forth slowly. He looks like he was digesting what Coulson said but wasn’t sure he believes it.

“You should have let me finish myself last night,” he finally says. “You should have let me die.”

“I need to know what you were up too.”

Ward shakes his head. “No.”

“You don’t have a choice in the matter.” 

“Send me to prison—shoot me—I don’t want to be Grant Ward. He’s a monster.”

 

“You can’t force him to remember you know that Phil,” May said when Coulson left the infirmary. “It has to be voluntary.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

“Phil—“

“I’m thinking.”

He walks over to the monitors. He replaced Ward’s cuff with an ankle monitor, even though he is unsure if he will try to kill himself again.

Fitz was sitting at the monitors. Coulson was surprised to find he was the only one there. He figured everyone wanted to sit in.

“I cleared them out,” Fitz said. “Let me talk to Ward.”

“I don't think thats a good idea.”

“We connected in the last few days. He's not going to do it by—Force—“

Coulson looks at May.

“We got nothing left to lose.”

“I want May in the room with you.”

“No—“

“Fitz, regardless of how he's been acting, he's still volatile.”

“He’ll bolt if May is there. He needs someone who’s been nice to him. Besides if it's true, he's guilty the most over me. Of all the things you talked about, he kept coming back to hurting me.”

“I—“ Coulson looks over the young engineer. He looks determined. “I want May right outside the door and you yell if there is any trouble.”

 

He is lying on the bed, facing away from the door when Fitz comes in. He looks at the ankle monitor and at Ward’s bandaged wrist.. 

“I don't want to talk,” he says. “I want to be left alone.”

“Are you sure?”

Ward turns around and looks surprised to see him.

“Leo—“ he looks embarrassed and turns back around. “Why are you here? Aren’t you worried I might hurt you? You should just stay away. You did your job.”

“I don’t think so. Please I don’t want to talk to your back.” Instead of waiting for Ward to turn back around, Fitz moves to the other side of the bed.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Ward laughs but not in a funny way. “You’re sorry? I hurt you and you’re sorry.”

“You told me you thought I was on the only honest person here but I was lying.”

“So small compared to what I’ve done.”

“I’ll be honest now. I’m here to convince you to use the memory device.”

He shakes his head. 

“Please. You want to make up for what you’ve done, this will help.”

Ward doesn’t say anything, but his lips quivered. “I don’t want to know. I’m afraid if I remember I’ll be him again. I’ll hurt people.”

“You don’t have to be. You know before I was injured I was convinced you had been brainwashed or at least you weren’t born bad.”

“Was I brainwashed?”

Fitz shakes his head. 

“I think now that you don’t remember, you don’t have—Um—baggage from Garrett and this is who you really are.”

Ward doesn’t respond.

“Please, will you help us figure out what you were doing? Use the memory machine?”

“What did I do to you?” 

“You dropped Simmons—Jemma and I in a medical pod into the ocean. Luckily the plane was flying low and we survived the fall, but the pod sank instead of floated. In getting out, I was deprived of oxygen.”

Ward looks down. “Don’t you want to kill me?”

“I tried—But I couldn’t do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for comments and kudos.


	15. Into the Past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra long chapter today. A lot happens and I didn't think it would be good to break it all up. I think Ward fans will really like it.

“Hands.”

Ward put out his hands. “Do I need them? I'm not going to hurt anyone, I promise.” Despite his talk with Leo, he still can’t absorb what Coulson had told him. He doesn’t feel like a terrorist or a killer. 

May cuffs them. She doesn't smile at him at all. Her face is full of scorn.

“It's a precaution,” Coulson says. “The device can trigger reactions.”

“Reactions?”

“You'll be fine, Grant,” Angelo says, touching his shoulder. “I'll be monitoring you. We'll stop at any signs of distress. Okay.”

Ward isn't looking at Angelo, but at Fitz who nods. 

They have brought a wheelchair for him, even though he thinks he could walk, but he sits into anyway.

As they move him through the compound, people stop what they are doing and stare at him. He can see the daggers in some of their eyes. He knew saying sorry wouldn't cut it.

He passes the woman who threatened him with a gun, but she isn't look at him but at Leo. 

Ward decides to put his head down. He can't look into their eyes anymore. He doesn't know how to fix things.

The device doesn't look like much. It's a hospital table with something that looks like a round monitor at the head. 

Ward refuses help getting out of the chair and unto the table, even though his hands are cuffed. When he lies down, Dr. Angelo begins putting vital monitors on him. 

“Lie back and just relax,” she says. “You'll be perfectly fine.” She nods at Coulson who turns the device on.

“Look at May and think about Kara,” Coulson says.

Ward looks at May, takes in her beauty and stern face. He closes his eyes. He has May's face in his head when it morphed to a different May. One that has a long scar on the right side of her face. This face is sad rather than stern.

“Kara,” he whispers.

“Where are you?” Coulson asks.

“I'm in a plane,” he says.

 

Ward blinks his eyes. He doesn’t remember passing out. He turns to see Kara at the controls of a plane. It takes him a moment to get his bearings. Then he remembers. They stole Whitehall’s specialized Learjet and are heading to Colorado. 

“You're awake,” she says, her slightly mechanical voice echoes. 

Ward doesn’t respond. He looks down at his bloodstained shirt and lifts it up. Skye managed to hit him twice. One is a flesh wound, but the other had gone into his side. He bandaged the wound and now it bled through and a small pool is on the seat. He laughs. He taught her well.

“What's so funny?”

“Nothing. I don't remember falling asleep.”

“You fainted.”

Ward doesn’t respond to that. “Are we close?”

“Yes. Maybe 10 minutes. I think you need medical assistance.”

“Yes,” he says. He feels feverish and assumes the wound is infected. 

“Do you know someone in Colorado?”

“I own some land. We can hole up there. There is a doctor in Denver. Rickard. He's a Hydra doctor but he'll help us—especially you.”

She looks straight at the controls and the sky outside, but says. “I can’t possibly be brainwashed.”

“You were. You were a great Shield agent that's why Whitehall wanted you.”

“And you weren’t brainwashed?”

“No—I was loyal to Garrett because he saved me from being weak. I owe him everything. I was just a scared abused kid when he found me.”

Kara doesn't respond.

Ward looks over the scenery and the lovely Rocky Mountains in the distance. He takes a deep breath. His hand goes to his wound. He still can't believe Skye shot him. He had been trying to help, trying to make things right. She wanted to know about her parents.

A wave of pain washes over him. The plane has a med kit but it only has Tylenol. Ward swallowed a couple before he passed out but they aren't helping. 

He looks to Kara. He is glad Whitehall let her remember her name so he doesn't have to call her 33. He knows how mixed up she is. He felt the same way after Coulson told him Garrett was dead. He didn’t show Coulson how upset he was. Garrett had saved him. 

Ward could tell she’s upset. Whitehall was her everything and now he's gone too.

They land on concrete strip not so far from the house. He bought this land under the name Zack Thomas about five years ago. Garrett told him too and to not tell him where it was. While Garrett had been almost certain Hydra wouldn't have a problem taking over SHIELD, he had told him it would be a good idea to buy land that no one knew about. 

He comes out here once in a while to be alone and to restock the place.

Kara has to help him out of the plane. Every step brings agonizing pain. The road where they land the plane is about a quarter mile from the main house. 

By the time they get there, he can barely walk. 

The main house has an eye scan that lets them through a gate and also unlocks the door. When they get inside, even though his side is on fire, he programs the computer to recognize her. 

It is a large cabin, two floors. He didn't built it. It came with the land along with a bunch of small cabins. It’s mostly off the grid, running on a well, solar panels, and a generator. 

Kara walks him to one of the bedrooms that are on the first floor. He collapses onto of the bed that smells musty. She touches his forehead. 

“You're warm.”

“Yes—“

“You need antibiotics and painkillers.”

“There’s a cash box in the toilet tank and a drug store about five miles from here. I’m sure they won’t mind handing over some heavy duty antibiotics for enough cash. There is a SUV in the garage. It might need a jump, but there’s a portable jumper in the garage also, still plugged into the wall.”

“Are you sure you're going to be okay alone?”

“Kara, I’ll be fine. I’ve been through worse. Can you just help me get comfortable?”

She takes off his shoes, his pants, and removed his shirt and moves him on to the bed. He sits there in boxers and an undershirt. The undershirt is saturated with blood. 

“You’re still bleeding.”

“It’s not as bad.”

“Should I change the dressing?”

“No—just go. I need you to get Dr. Rickard.”

She makes him comfortable on the bed and covers him with a comforter. He feels hot yet he starts to shiver.

As soon as the door closes, Garrett appears. He looks at Ward and smiles.

“Hey, kid, long time no see. She's going straight to Hydra, you know that.”

Garrett started showing up when they first put him in the vault. Ward hadn't even been surprised to see him. He never told Coulson or Skye. He didn’t want them to think he was crazy too. He often felt that way locked up in the vault. It reminded him too much of the time Garrett left him alone in the woods. He just assumed he imagined Garrett there because he needed someone to give him orders.

“Hydra is not going to be happy, kid,” Garrett says, Ward doesn't speak to him. He never does. 

 

“How's he doing?” Coulson asks. Garrett appearing to Ward disturbs him. Something about this tells him these are not normal hallucinations. Especially since he showed up before Ward got amnesia.

“He’s fine,” Angelo says, looking over the monitor. “Vitals are all normal.”

May vanished, off to get Skye to track down land owned by Zack Thomas.

“We have an location. Should we finish?” Angelo asks.

“Not yet.” Coulson replies. “I want a little more information about what is in Colorado. I also need more information on this Rickard and Kara.” He heard what Ward said about Kara being brainwashed. Now he feels bad about leaving her behind after her fight with May.

He looks over to Fitz who is sitting quietly on a stool. He hasn't said a single word.

“Grant,” Dr. Angelo says. “When does Kara come back?”

 

Kara is back an hour later with no Hydra agents. He feels warmer but doesn't say so. 

“They didn’t have anything stronger than this,” she says, handing him a bottle of a broad spectrum antibiotics and bottle of ibuprofen. He doesn’t know if it will be strong enough but he doesn’t tell her. “I got new dressings for your wound.”

“This will be fine. You should go get Dr. Rickard. He’ll help us.”

“Denver is a 5 hour drive. It might be a while before I get back.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Let me get you something to eat first.”

He doesn’t argue. Instead he relaxes into the pillow. She brings him a large glass of water. He takes the antibiotic and the four pain killers.

“Thanks—I would have been dead without you.”

She says nothing. She lies next to him for a few minutes. It's not in a sexual way. It wasn’t like he had any energy to do the deed. They had hid out in Puerto Rico for two days. After the earthquake, it was hard to get around. His being shot didn't help. They had grown used to each other though they barely talked about anything other than what they had to do.

“I’m worried about you. You’re getting worse.”

“Give the antibiotics a few days to kick in.”

He knows it’s getting worse. He can feel the fever spiking. The bullet wound feels hot rather than itchy. He knows if he removes the dressing, there will be pus, maybe even signs of blood poisoning. He needs her to get Dr. Rickard. Not for himself but for her. He decides he has to save her from Hydra. He had a choice, she didn’t.

She makes him some food, a small bowl of oatmeal. He forces himself to eat it because of the way she looks at him.

“You should go.”

She nods. She gets off the bed and stares at him, just for a moment before she leaves the bedroom. A moment later he hears the door close. 

Garrett is back. “Straight to Hydra, kid.”

He ignores him again and goes back to sleep.

 

“I found the land,” Skye says as she came into the room. Ward is lying on the table. He actually looked rather calm and serene. 

“Do you want to stop?” Angelo asks. “He must have fallen asleep.”

Coulson shakes his head. “We need to get more information. I think Dr. Rickard was a shield doctor who defected to Hydra. Skye, why don’t you look him up what you can. His first name is Robert.”

Skye pulls up a seat and continues typing. 

“Grant,” Dr. Angelo says. “What happens when you wake up?” 

 

“Wake up, kid, you’re going to wet the bed.”

He’s burning up now. The clock radio says it's close to 6. The sun is fading from the sky. Kara won't be back for a few more hours. Garrett is right. He has to pee.

“She’s going back with a whole continuity of hydra soldiers. They are not going to be happy with you.”

Ward tries to stand up. He swings he’s legs out over the bed, but he can’t stop the wave of nausea and he loses his oatmeal on the polished wood floors.

“Hydra doesn’t do cleaning services either.”

He never talks to Garrett. Although he always seems to listen. He tells him do things and he does them, even though after he doesn’t know why. 

He manages to stand. Everything is so hot. His side is on fire. He barely makes to the bathroom to pee and then he throws up again. He lies against the toilet and everything comes up. He continues retching even though there is nothing left.

When he was a kid, he had a stomach virus. His mother told him if he threw up anywhere except the toilet, he would have to clean it up. Then when he was running for the bathroom, Christian tripped him and he ended up tossing his cookies all over the floor and furniture. Christian, of course ran to his mother to tattle and he had to spend an hour with a 103 fever scrubbing the floor while Christian made retching noises besides him and that was before Thomas was old enough to be tortured.

“Kid, there is a razor blade in the cabinet. Let's end this. Hydra has torture down to an art.”

And for the first time ever, in his feverish haze, something breaks, Ward responds to Garrett.

“Shut up, you bastard. You ruined everything.”

“Oh you're finally talking to me, but kid. I didn’t ruin anything. This is all on you.”

Ward is shouting now. “I don’t know why I listened to you. I hate you.”

“Yeah, why did you listen to me? Especially since I had your girlfriend shot. Oh and I knew you liked her.”

Ward doesn't know. His anger when Skye was shot was over the top. He thought about going to Coulson or even to Fury, but he didn’t. 

“I wanted to be loyal to them.”

“Them?”

“My team—They were my team and now they hate me. They cared about me and I let them down. More than you ever did. All I want to do is go home to them, my only family.”

“Kid, you know what I did. I took you away from a horror show. Your meanie old brother. I made you who you were.”

“No! No! you didn’t,” he shouts as he slams his fists against the floor. “You didn’t. You twisted me. You turned me into a monster.”

He lies against the floor now, breathing hard. The coolness of the tiles helps with the fever but he thinks he's going to die on this floor.

“Kid—they never liked you. They just made you weak.”

“They didn’t make me weak,” he says. “You did.”

Something happens to him. He doesn't know what. Everything is shaking and the room goes dark.

 

“What’s going on?” Coulson asks. He tries to stay calm. Ward’s eyes rolls into the back of his head and he is shaking.

“Grant,” Dr. Angelo says. “Grant, can you hear me? You probably had a convulsion from the high fever. It’s not real. Tell us what happens afterwards.” The shaking stops and Ward’s eyes go back to normal.

“You son of a bitch,” he says and his eyes close.

Angelo looks at his vitals. “His pulse and pressure are a little high but he should be able to go on.”

Coulson looks around. Skye is still here but she has stopped looking at her computer. He is surprised to see Simmons. He didn’t even her come in. She is sitting on a stool nearby looking visually upset. Even May looks uncomfortable. No one else is talking. Fitz is sitting on his chair with his hand covering his face. 

“Grant,” she says. “You passed out. What is the next thing you see?”

“Kara.”

 

Garrett’s not there when he opens his eyes, but Kara is, looking concerned. Standing behind her is Dr. Rickard. He's tall, with salt and pepper hair and rail thin.

“Grant,” she whispers. She takes his arm gently. “You need to get up.”

“I want to go home—“ he says but he has no home, no family, no friends. His only lifeline a Hydra doctor and a brainwashed shield agent. His team is never coming for him again.

They both help him up but he can barely move on his own. Kara takes one side and Rickard the other as the agony of the infected wound presses against his body. They get him back to the bed. They ignore the vomit on the floor. Unlike his mother, they don't ask him to clean it up.

Rickard has a black bag with him that he opens. He pulls out a set of rubber gloves. 

“Get me some hot towels,” he says to Kara. “And a bowl.” She rushes out of the room. He pulls out an ear thermometer. It doesn’t take long to beep.

“One hundred and five.”

“Help her,” Ward says. “Please—get her away from Hydra.”

“I will but I think, Grant Ward, it’s more important right now to help you.”

Ward is confused, not just from the high fever. He knows about Dr. Rickard, knows he is one of Hydra’s many brainwashers and that he’s known to keep a secret, but they've never met. Kara returns with two towels that are steaming and a ceramic bowl.

“Thank you, dear, lift his shirt,” Ward doesn't resist as Kara lifts his shirt. Rickard removes the makeshift bandage while Ward grimaces in pain.

“The wound is infected,” he says, matter of fact. “You're showing signs of blood poisoning. Help me lift him.” Kara pulls him over her shoulder as Rickard’s investigates his back. He feels comfortable pressed against her. He doesn’t flinch that way he’ll sometimes do.

“No exit wound. I’ll have to get the bullet out and I think it's pretty deep.”

“Great,” Ward says as Kara lays him back on the pillow. 

“It’s going to hurt. I only have local anesthesia.” He pulls a syringe of his bag and pulls at a bottle. He drains that into the syringe. 

“Injectable antibiotics,” he injects it into his thigh. “Heavy duty. I also have an IV of it and something to keep your blood pressure up.”

“He already started on them,” Kara says, her voice echoes. 

“He’ll be dead by morning if we don't flood his system with it.”

He puts the syringe in a baggie and pulls out another one. He drains that one too with a different vial. That one he inject around the area in the wound. He pulls out some surgical equipment.

“You’ll need to be as still as possible. It’s going to hurt. Can you hold him?” he says to Kara. Rickard positions Ward at his side while Kara holds in front. He almost feels safe resting against her stomach and she isn’t squeamish about holding him. It’s her SHIELD training. 

“Grant, listen to me. I want you to think about a time you were happy.”

“Never—“ he says. 

“How about that girl?” Kara says.

“You mean the one that shot me?”

“Come on, look at me.” He turns his head to look at Dr. Rickard. “Remember a time you were happy.” He didn’t realize that Dr. Rickard has a ring. He can't help staring at it and how it twinkles in the light. “think deeply.” Ward closes his eyes.

“Buddy.”

“Who’s buddy?”

“Garrett’s dog but I'm not happy—I’m scared.”

“Why are you scared?”

Ward begins to sniffle. “Cause it’s cold and dark. I’m alone. I’ve never been alone like this.”

“How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Where’s Buddy?”

“He’s right next to me. He’s keeping me warm.”

“Where’s Garrett? Is he there?”

Ward shakes his head. “No, he’s gone. He left me here—“ He opens his eyes and looks over Rickard’s shoulder. Garrett is there.

“Get away from me, you bastard,” he cries out, then he feels agony. His side is on fire and then the sound of a clink as bullet hitting the bowl. 

“That’s it,” Rickard says, “You did good. It’s out. Let me bandage you up.”

 

That’s when Simmons suddenly bolts from the room. Fitz looks like he might follow but doesn’t.

“Grant,” Angelo says. “What happens next?”

 

When he wakes up, he is no longer against Kara, Garrett is gone, and his mouth is dry. His fever is still there but not as strong. 

Dr. Rickard is sitting on a chair close to the bed. 

“Thirsty?”

He nods. Rickard presses a cup against his lips. “Drink slowly.”

Ward takes a few sips letting the cool water down his throat. He thinks about his former team. Skye shot him and they wouldn’t care if he was dead in a ditch.

“Where’s Kara?” he asks weakly. 

“I sent her on some errands to get some supplies for you until you're better. You're very ill. I have to go back to Denver or I’ll be missed. I’ll give you a burn phone so we can keep in contact. I’ll try to fix her but I have to be careful.”

“You won’t tell Hydra about her—“ he says, his voice trailing off.

“No, I won’t. She’s lucky she’s only loyal to one person who happens to be dead. You were a specialist right? With Shield?”

“Yeah, a long time ago.”

“But you still have that training? You can go in and extract someone?”

“Yes.”

“When you’re better I need that as a favor for all I am doing today for both you and Kara. I think we just all threw each other a lifeline.”

Ward is confused by what his is saying. He didn't know what favor he would be doing or who he would be extracting, but Rickard saved his life.

“But I have to ask you one thing right now.”

“Of course.”

“Are you seeing John Garrett?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise that the reason why he sees Garrett will be revealed soon.


	16. Friends again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very short chapter. May not be able to post until next Friday since I have a busy week coming up but I'll try to post Tuesday especially if there is another Wardless episode. You can also follow me on Tumblr at Fullofcats as well. I have lots of opinions about AoS and the seriously uneven writing.

All hell breaks loose. Ward pulls himself out of the machine, screams out, and pushes the person closest to him that happens to be Dr. Angelo. She falls to the ground but not hard. She is up quickly. She pulls a pouch from a nearby table and takes out a hyperemic needle.

“Get him steady,” she shouts. 

Ward tries reaching out, fighting anyone who came in contact with him. The cuffs were the only thing that keep him from hurting anyone else.

“Grab him,” Coulson says to May. 

“Ward,” Fitz says. “It’s us, please. Stop it.”

May holds Ward down just enough that Dr. Angelo could stick the needle in. A moment later he settles back down on the table. 

“What the hell just happened?” Coulson asks, but he doesn’t get a response because there is a bigger problem. The room is shaking.

Skye,” he says, looking at her. He sees anger he doesn’t want to see. “Skye, you need to calm down.”

“Come on,” Fitz says, his voice calm. “Reel it in. That machine is unpredictable.”

“That’s not it,” she says. She turns around and run from the room. The room shakes but lessens.

Coulson looks at May and tries to figure out what to do. 

“I’ll stay here,” she says. “Go after her.”

Coulson knows exactly where she’d gone. He walks through the playground and heads into the vault. Skye is sitting in the same cell she imposed on herself before and where they also held Ward. The shaking has stopped at least. Coulson opens the door. 

“I was so angry at him,” she says, hugging a pillow tightly. “So angry that I shot him. I didn't know—I didn't know.”

“None of us did. Skye, I don’t blame you. Ward betrayed us big time. He killed two agents and nearly killed Fitz and Simmons. The fact that he actually was remorseful for that doesn’t change what he’s done. I sat with him for weeks and he never said he was sorry.”

“I know that—“ she says. “But what he said—about never having a moment where he actually felt happy. That's horrible.”

Coulson doesn’t know what to say. He knows how much Ward’s betrayal hurt the team. Ward hadn't been Coulson’s favorite person even before the betrayal, but he had always counted on him to look after the younger members of the team. 

“Two years ago,” she says. “I was an idealist, I wanted to change the world. What am I now? Does SHIELD do that?” she asks. “Does it take compassion out of you?”

“No—“ he says, touching her shoulder. “Hydra did that.”

“You heard what he said, AC? About Garrett leaving him alone somewhere when he was a kid.”

“I don’t know what happened, but I think Dr. Rickard does. We need to go to Colorado and find out.”

“I want to come,” she says, getting up. “I want to know what that bastard Garrett did.”

 

“Are you okay?” Fitz found Simmons in the lab sitting at her desk mindlessly looking at some report. She doesn’t look happy.

“I just wish that things would go back to way they were. Before Hydra.”

Fitz takes a seat next to her. Everything had changed since Hydra. Friendships, camaraderie, family, their entire belief system, and Fitz realized that they blamed everything about Hydra on Ward. 

“It never will, Jemma, we’re just going to have to be something different, which is not necessarily bad.”

“You heard what Ward said—On the bathroom floor. He betrayed us, but maybe we betrayed him except for you. You’re a good man, Fitz. You always see the good in everyone.”

Fitz feels a little embarrassed about what she says.

“Do you forgive him?” she asks.

“Closer now than before. It’s hard to let hate go. What about you?”

“I don’t know if I can,” she says, and tears form in her eyes. Fitz does something he hasn’t done in a long time, he hugs Simmons tightly. He misses their friendship. If she doesn’t like him in a romantic way, that's fine but he wants the friendship they had before.

He hears someone walk into the room. It’s May.

“Sorry,” she says. “We’re going to Colorado if either of you want to come. Wheels up in 15.” 

“Coulson okayed it?” Fitz asks. 

“It’s his idea,” she says. 

“How is Ward?” Simmons asks. May doesn’t response for a long time. 

Fitz knows May is not very forgiving and it’s always been heard to read her. He doesn’t know how she’s absorbing the news of what what happen with memory machine.

“Hunter and Mac are transferring him to the bus to his old bunk.” Fitz realizes she didn’t answer Simmons’ question but she doesn’t ask again.


	17. Skye Above

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi All, short chapter and a bit of filler. Just so people know I'm not a really a shipper or a Skyeward fan. I'm interested in Ward redemption stories. That being said, I've seen how other fans treat you, so I added a little something at the end for you.
> 
> Here's to maybe a glimpse of Ward tonight. But at least we'll have crazy Mr. Hyde.
> 
> Also my tumblr is actually https://www.tumblr.com/blog/fullofcats81

He has no idea where his is when he opens his eyes. He’s lying on a bed. He blinks a few times. The room is small and feels like a cabin and and is vibrating slightly. He is happy to see sunlight coming from a window. He stands up and feels a little woozy but he makes his way over to the window.

He looks at his ankle, the monitor is still there, but the cuffs are gone. He looks at his wrists, which are red and bruised. He doesn’t know what happened after Rickard asked him about John Garrett. 

He sees beautiful blue and cloudy skies from up above. He realizes he’s on a plane. He walks around the small bunk and opens a closet door. He finds three black suits. He closes the door. The rest of the room is bare.

Some of the memories are coming back but not everything. He doesn’t remember the people he killed. he doesn’t remember what he did to Leo. He remembers Kara and Dr. Rickard. 

He tries the door but it’s locked. Instead of heading back to the bed, he looks out the window again to the clouds and the land below. Fly over states. He knows they were heading to Colorado. He doesn't know what is there except for Kara and maybe Dr. Rickard. He replays what he remembered. Lying on the floor of the bathroom, filled with anger, hatred, and regret.

What he doesn't remember is Garrett had done to him or even what had done to his team, but he remembers his feeling on the floor. That strong need go home and make everything the way it was before.

He may not have all his memories but he knew that was impossible. He knows he has burnt his bridges and done too much damage. He doubts he could ever go back but maybe he could do something to make it right.

He hears the door open. He looks back to see Leo. He is always surprised to see him now that he knows what he’s done.

“You alright?” he asks.

Ward doesn’t reply right away. He keeps thinking about the despair he felt. 

“You shouldn’t be concerned about me. Not after all I did.”

“We went—um—on a mission, once. Just you and me. I thought we bonded. In fact until you dropped me and Simmons into an ocean, I thought Garrett had something on you. I think he did.” 

Ward tries to smile but can’t. “Leo, I’m a grown man. I am responsible for my own actions. John Garrett didn’t make me do anything.”

“But he had a hold on you. So much that you hall—Hallucinated him.”

“I’m sure he did, but—“ He looks away and back to the window. His ears pop. They are getting ready to descent.

“But what?”

“I’m still responsible for my own actions. After this is done, I have to face the consequences. Prison, I guess.”

The door opens and it’s the woman he saw at the bathroom when he tried to slit his wrist. She stands at the door and looks at him. 

“What’s up?” Fitz asks.

“Can I have a moment?”

Fitz moves to the door and the woman closes it.

He remembers her from that night, how familiar she looks, and the hatred he saw in her eyes. She doesn't have it now.

“You’re Skye, aren’t you?” he remembers the name from the machine of the woman he liked who shot him.

She looks startled at the question, but she nods.

“You were right to do it.”

“No—“ she finally talks. “I wasn’t. I shot you while you were unarmed. I think that maybe you trying to do something nice for me, the only way you knew how.”

“I wasn’t very nice?”

She nods. “I mean you were before we found out you were a Hydra spy. We didn’t know what was an act and what was you being honest.”

He thinks back to the only memories he has right now. His conflicted feelings for the woman in front of him who apparently he liked but now she’s a stranger.

“You were right to do it. Regardless of what happened to me in Colorado. What Coulson told me, I was dangerous. You were right to try to get rid of me.”

She shakes her head. “No—I was wrong for not trying to reach you. What you said in the machine—about Garrett, about missing the team—about never having a happy memory. Not even when you were with us. The best you could do was being comforted by a dog.” Her eyes almost look teary.

“I couldn’t—I think cared about all of you. I felt that on the bathroom floor, but I knew Hydra would up rise and I would have to follow Garrett. The stupid thing is I don’t know why—He sounded like a monster. And on that bathroom floor, I had no love for him. I thought about confessing after you were shot but couldn’t.”

“You also said Garrett left you in the woods when you were 15—At least now we know why you were so loyal to him. The question is why you are seeing only him after he’s long dead.”

“I don’t know.”

“You once said you weren’t brainwashed—Maybe you were.”

Ward doesn't get a chance to respond. The door opens again. It is their leader, Coulson.

“Everything okay?” He directs this more to Skye. He doesn't look happy that she's here and Ward knows Coulson doesn't have a high opinion of him.

“We’re fine," Skye says.

“We’re landing. For now, Ward, you’ll need to stay here until we investigate the house.”


	18. The Truth Hurts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohh, 1 seconds of Ward and some nifty artwork. They do like to torture us. And this new SHIELD has completely changed my perspective on how he might be redeemed. I'm getting a second story ready based on my new specs.
> 
> There is maybe 3 chapters left, so I will try to get them out this weekend.
> 
> Also again, not a shipper, not a Skyeward fan but seeing fans shit on other fans disturbs me greatly, so I wrote a little sweet section with them at the end.
> 
> Also just a teaser. The last person you might expect helps Ward deal with what he's done.

“We have a problem, Phil,” May says as they get ready to open the bay doors. Over May’s objections, Coulson decides to only go with her, leaving Hunter and Skye to keep an eye on Ward and leave if it got hot.

“What?”

“The house isn’t there.”

“What?”

“There are a few scattered cabins, but the house is just a footprint. There is no sign of fire or bombing. The house is gone.”

Coulson isn’t sure what she means.

“This could be a trap.”

“Yes, it could.”

“And you're not worried. Phil, we have limited intel from Ward,” she says. The word Ward comes out louder.

“I like the odds,” Phil says. May could only shake her head. Sometimes she wonders if she has blinders when it comes to Coulson. 

“If I get killed, no stupid ceremony.”

“Agreed.”

“You agreed to that way too fast,” she says as they walk off the plane.

It is a warm spring day and Coulson and May follow a green path to the house. May is right. The house which is supposed to be a four bedroom cabin is gone.

May walks around the outline. She moves to go across but stops at the line.

“Electrical charge,” she says and takes a step back. “There is something here.”

Coulson moves to the where the front of the house is. There is a long driveway and lots of trees. No wonder Ward bought this land. It is a great place to hide.

Then the weirdest thing happens. There is a whooshing sound and May sees a familiar sight. The house phases back into existence.

He raises his eyes to May. She puts her hand forward and pulls it back rapidly. “There is still a force field.”

The door of the house opens and Coulson sees a woman he doesn’t know. He takes in her appearance. Early 50’s, brown hair with white put up in a bun. She’s dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt. She is unarmed.

She walks to him with her hands out but stops at the force field.

“Agent Coulson?”

He nods. He’s unsure what’s about to happen next, but he doesn’t move for a weapon. Neither does May.

“I’ve heard a lot about you-- From Grant. I don’t see him, is he okay?”

“Who are you?”

“Ann Rickard.”

“Dr. Rickard’s?”

“I’m his wife. Do you have Grant? Is he okay?”

Coulson is a little disturbed by her concern tone for Ward but he answers anyway. “He’s a little banged up, but he’s okay. What is this place?”

Ann pulls a button out of her jeans and hits it.

“The force field is down. Agent Coulson, Welcome to Haven.”

“Haven?”

“It’s a place for SHIELD agents brainwashed by hydra.”

Coulson doesn't know what to expect. When Ann opens the door to a large living room, he sees a half dozen people and May’s scarred face staring at him.

Ann goes over to her and takes her hands. “He’s alive.”

Pseudo May tries to smile but the scar on her mouth stops it halfway.

“I think you know Agent Coulson and Agent May.”

“Sorry,” she says, her voice sounded like May but with an echo. It is also more timid. “Daniel Whitehall brainwashed me.”

“You’re Agent 33?”

“Kara Lynn Palamas sir. I apologize for my behavior to you and to Agent May.”

May says nothing. 

“We accept your apology. Why do you still look like May?”

She shakes her head. “Dr. Rickard tried to get it off—but he can’t. Not without ripping all the skin off my face.”

“Maybe we can try something.”

“I would like that—Grant, what happened to him?”

“It’s a long story. Where is Dr. Rickard?”

“He’s with a fragile patient,” Ann says. “He knows you’re here. He’ll be up as soon as possible. Why don’t you come into the kitchen for some iced tea?”

Coulson walks across the living room to get to the kitchen. The living room is a circle of three couches around a table. There was no TV but a fireplace. A man sits on the couch reading a book. Coulson can see dark circles under his eyes.

“Phil Coulson?” a voice says. He looks towards another couch. A woman stands up. She has dark circles under her eyes.

“Samantha?”

“I can’t believe you’re here.”

“I thought you were dead. They said Hydra took the Treehouse.”

“They did, but I knew too much. They tortured then brainwashed me. I’m better now—If SHIELD needs me—I’m ready.”

Coulson takes her hand and smiles. She manages a weak smile back. “We’ll talk about it later, okay.”

She nods and goes back to the couch. Coulson remembers when he last saw her. She was an incredible beauty, but now her eyes are sunk in, her hair limp, and her face reads broken.

Two other people are in the living room: A man and a woman. Both look as broken as Sam. They look at Coulson and the man smiles in hope.

Coulson gives him a slight smile back before joining Ann, May, and Kara in the kitchen.

“They are mostly scientists,” Ann explains as she opens the fridge. Kara gets four glasses from a cabinet above the stove. “They’ve been through hell. We have three field agents. Hydra killed most of them—and a lot of the specialists too. Except the ones who were sleeper agents. It was mostly the specialists, because of the brute strength.”

Coulson thinks of Ward. Remembers him screaming while in the memory machine that he regretted his actions.

“Who’s idea was this?”

Ann smiles. “The four of us. Robert, Kara, Grant, and me.”

“And how many are here all together.”

“There are 18 of us.”

“And how many brainwashed agents.” 

“It’s complicated—Robert should be the one explaining this.”

There is awkward silence for a moment. Coulson looks at May who hasn't said a word but he knows what she is thinking. Did Ward get brainwashed?

“We’ve gathered Hydra intel,” says a voice. It sounds like May but it comes with a echo and from across the kitchen.

“Good.”

“We’ll give it to you. I know a few of Whitehall’s bases and safehouses.”

Coulson hears footsteps. He turned around to see Dr. Rickard.

Coulson never met him before but he knows who he is, only because Simmons had gotten a list of some of the former Shield agents who went over to Hydra voluntarily. Rickard had been one of them.

Rickard also doesn’t look good. The circles under his eyes aren’t as pronounced as Sam, but his hair is mostly white and he is rail thin.

Rickard doesn't smile. “It’s good to meet you, Agent Coulson, Agent May. I bet you have a lot of questions.”

“Only a million.”

“Why don’t we sit? Ann, Jim is having a bad day. Why don’t you look in on him?”

Ann nods. She leaves the table and the room without saying goodbye.

“She looks after the agents,” he explains. “Like they were her kids since we never had any. How is Grant?”

“He was kidnapped by Hydra, tortured. They seem to know he was kidnapping Hydra agents. We rescued him. When he woke up he didn’t know who he was.”

“Christ,” Rickard says in a low voice. “At least he didn’t try to off himself or kill someone.”

“What?” This is the first thing May had said since they arrived.

“I concur with Agent May. You sent Ward off with the possibility that he might be dangerous?”

“Like I could stop Grant from doing anything. Besides. The medication works. Most of the time.”

“You gave him the anti-psychotics?”

“Yes, but they won’t hold up for long. He’s been seeing Garrett more often—“

“Wait, Ward has some of his memories back,” Coulson says, declining to mention how he got them back. “He recalled when you first met. You knew he was seeing Garrett.”

“Agent Coulson, I have 15 former SHIELD agents. 12 of them were brainwashed, three of them got the stick. Grant was one of them.”

“The stick?” 

“It’s a nasty piece of alien technology Hydra found in the 40’s. Something that Peggy Carter did not get her hands on.” But Coulson has to take a deep breath. Could all of Ward’s behavior been under alien influence.

“What does it do?”

“It’s some kind of Master/Servant device. It binds two people together. One has to obey the orders of another. It makes compliance a little bit easier. It’s almost always used on people who may have doubts about Hydra’s mission.”

“Wait a minute,” May says. “Ward knows things about Hydra. He could have known about the stick and lied about it to cover his actions.”

“He didn’t lie, because I was there when Garrett used it on him.”

No one says anything. The room is silent.

“Agent Coulson. Grant called himself a monster, but the biggest monster is me. Except for Kara, I brainwashed the agents here and I administrated the stick. I did it because Hydra threatened to kill Ann.”

Coulson goes to speak but Rickard stops him. “I know when we sign up for Shield, we are told to never submit to any enemy no matter what the costs. Even if they threatened your family. HYDRA approached me. I turned them down. A day later, Ann was hit by a car. It was minor, just a broken arm. The next day, my supervisor smiled at me and whispered. ‘Hail Hydra’. And from then on I worked for them. Learning brainwashing techniques for them and hypnotism.

“I know I messed up. I know I did the wrong thing. I know that my brainwashed agents got people killed. I’m doing my best to fix it. Grant and Kara were my lifeline as much as I was theirs. When Hydra took over Shield, Ann and I tried to run. Hydra caught us. I was too valuable to kill and they knew killing Ann would mean I would never work for them, so they took her hostage in what they called their incentive program. Grant rescued her. Now I will spend the rest of my life undoing the damage. Ann stays here because she knows we’re in danger and she likes helping the agents, but she doesn’t love me anymore. She’s loathes to even look at me.”

Coulson absorbs what he says. He decides to deal with Dr. Rickard later. There are more important things to discuss.

“Tell me about the stick.”

Rickard takes a deep breath. Kara fills his cup with tea. He pulls a bottle out of his pocket and pours the liquid into the tea. He drinks a little before talking.

“It was such a nasty piece of work that even Hydra only used it rarely. Only special circumstances.”

“Like Ward?”

Rickards shakes his head. ”No, they wouldn’t have used it on Grant. Hydra would have thought he was a liability and had him killed. John Garrett bought him to me. And said Hydra couldn’t know or there would be consequences.” 

Coulson doesn’t ask what the consequence would be. He keeps his anger at Rickard to a minimum. He didn’t condone what he did, but he did understand. He thinks about Mike Peterson.

“When Garrett bought him, the kid was terrified. Apparently he had told a classmate at the about Hydra. That classmate told the instructor. The instructor worked for HYDRA but happened to be a friend of Garrett.”

“Ward wanted to do the right thing?” Coulson asks. 

“I don’t know, but Garrett was not happy with him. He beat the crap out of him—“ Rickard pauses and takes another drink.

“When was this?”

“About eleven years ago.”

Coulson is taken aback. Ward had been under this thing for eleven years. But there is something else that bothers Coulson.

“You said John Garrett wasted five years. Eleven years ago Ward would have been 21. He started at the operational division at 20. Are you saying Garrett knew him before that.”

“What did your records says?”

“Ward was arrested when he was 15. He stole a car, drove 1,000 miles, torched his parent’s house. That was the worst of it, before it was just lots of fights.”

This time May gives him a look. 

“It was need to know,” Coulson explains. “He went to a Shield Juvenile Center. Where you get intense counseling while you finish your schoolwork. In my files, the counselors said there was severe abuse in the home, but we had caught it early enough. They said he’s a quiet kid, communication issues, but excellent at languages and marksmanship and would make a great specialist.” He looks over to May. “He reminded me a little of you.” May looks visually uncomfortable so Coulson decides not to mention it again. “After Hydra, I assumed it was all lies. Except Ward remembered being with Garrett’s dog when it was 15.”

“I’m sure some of it is. Grant is not a talker. And when Garrett comes up, he shuts down. But Hydra brainwashes in many different ways. The stick, brainwashing, hypnotism. All of it can be undone, it just takes a while. Sometimes Hydra agents would seek damaged kids to recruit. My belief is Grant was never in that SHIELD facility. I think John Garrett kidnapped him when he was 15, isolated him until he could make him a true believer.”

Coulson now is mad. He actually balls up his fist. 

“Hydra conditioned children?”

“Coulson, How do you think Hydra manage to keep this all quiet for 70 years without a single person squealing? We had a million different methods to keep people silent. We can even use hypnotism to briefly make people do something they would never do. We put bureaucracy in place to keep people from questioning.”

Coulson tries to compose himself. “Let’s go back to Garrett and the stick.”

“To break up their fight, I gave Garrett the stick. Suddenly they are buddies again.”

“Tell me more about it”

“As I said, it binds you to the other person. Hydra didn’t like it because it bound you to one person and because of the side effects if the master died.”

“Side effects.”

“Psychotic and suicidal behavior. The more damaged the person is, the worse it is. And they often hallucinate the master like Grant did.”

“Can it be undone?” Coulson said, then he sucked his breath.

“Yes, we acquired the stick last month.”

“Wait a minute—Ward is still seeing Garrett,” this comes from May.

“I haven’t used it on him. Not yet.”

Coulson is confused. “Why not?”

“He doesn’t want it done.”

“What?”

“It’s better if I show you why. Follow me.”

Rickard drains his ice tea then takes May and Coulson to a bedroom in the back of the cabin. Kara doesn't follow.

Coulson is surprised to see that there was no bed in the room and a metal door in the floor.

“I stole a few things from Hydra when I left. One was a machine that makes tunnels.”

Coulson wants to say that it is shield technology but doesn’t. It was how they built a lot of their hidden bases.

“This used to be a recreation area, but it was abandoned in the nineties. Grant bought it about five years ago. We have the main house and five cabins.” He pulls open the door revealing a wooden staircase with no banister.

At the bottom is a shored up dirt path. Coulson and May follows Rickard for about 100 feet and then climbed up a metal ladder to a trap door.

When Coulson climbs the ladder he is hit hard by the smell of tobacco smoke and Joni Jett singing Cherry Bomb. They come into a small living room with a dining room table at the center. Sitting at the table is a woman, dirty blond hair, waxen face. She has a cigarette in her hand. Rickard turns off the radio.

Unlike the broken faces, he had seen in Sam and the others, this woman’s face was hardened. She looks to be in her 50’s but somehow he thinks she is younger. She is smoking at a fast pace, bringing it to her lips every few seconds. She wears short sleeves and Coulson can see the cut marks on her wrists.

“Amy, how many have you had today.”

“Who cares—“ She looks over Coulson and May. “Who are the Mib’s—Wait, let me guess, CIA, NSA.”

“Shield,” Coulson says.

The woman laughs then let out a hacking cough. “There is no Shield. It’s all just hail hydra.”

“They found Grant,” Rickard explains

“Goody for them. The high and mighty Grant Ward has returned.”

“Amy, that’s not fair. You know Grant has it as bad as all of us.”

“Yes, he didn’t kill his team because of the schism.”

“Schism?”

Amy looks downright hostile now. “He didn’t tell you. The stick and the asguardians don’t mix.”

“The hold on Grant lessened when he was under the influence of Loralai.” Rickard explains.

“He told you about her?”

“I killed my entire team,” Amy interrupts. “Worked with them for five years. Was going to leave them alive when Hydra took over until my handler said they were a threat. Killed them without hesitation. My team leader, I had known for ten years. I slit his throat like a pig.”

“Amy—“

“What?” she says, her eyes getting wide. “Can’t slander the great Grant Ward, where the stick isn’t good enough. Where he doesn’t get to drink the drano like the rest of us.” 

Dr. Rickard doesn't try to stop her. Neither did Coulson nor May.

“Were you part of his team? Dr. Death over here thinks he didn’t kill you because of the schism. You get to live. He probably cared about you, but it didn't matter. You have to follow orders.”

“What does she mean?” Coulson asked.

“He would have killed you all,” Rickard admitted. “Without hesitation, if Garrett had given the word.”

Coulson thought about Fitz and Simmons. How instead of killing them outright, he dumped them in the ocean giving them a fighting chance.

“Did Dr. Death tell you that Kara had to wrestle with Ward when he went after him with a knife because Garrett told him to do it?”

“Amy, please."

She doesn't storp. “So count yourself lucky. The stick, it gave me back my guilt. But the mighty Grant Ward thought he was saving me when he should have left me with Hydra.”

She stands up and goes to a bedroom, slamming the door shut.

“And she’s the one most put together,” Rickard says.

He turns to another door. This one is slightly opened. Coulson can see a thin man with long hair and a beard in the crack.

“Bob,” Rickard says. “You want to come out.”

The man abruptly slammed the door shut.

“Bob killed his mentor of 20 years. He was just a teacher at the academy. He didn’t even have training to use a gun. He stabbed his mentor in the neck with a pencil. The person who controlled Bob died and one night Bob went to home and killed his parents.”

Coulson doesn't respond. He absorbs all of this. 

“And then there was Danny.”

“Danny?”

“Bright kid, young scientist at the academy. Bubbly personality. We all thought he would be fine. He had only been under the influence for a little while, he had good parents, and hadn’t killed anyone. When we did it, he was still laughing and joking afterwards. Saying he was looking forward to seeing his family again. Later that night, he drank a half a bottle of drano. Grant found him. Danny told him he had been making biological weapons for Hydra and he didn’t want his mother to know. Grant stayed with him until he died. ” Rickard pauses. Coulson doesn’t say anything.

“If Kara hadn’t woken and found Grant, he would have drank the rest of the bottle. The worst part, he said Garrett didn’t make him do it. After that he didn’t want the stick undone. He continued saving brainwashed agents. He never rescued another person the stick was used on. I gave him the medications. He had good and bad days.”

Coulson doesn’t say anything for a long time. He looks at May but she says nothing. He had been so absorbed with getting Shield back that he hadn’t thought about the Shield agents who needed the most help.

“Now what?” Coulson says.

“Now you decide what you want to do with us. It was Grant’s goal eventually to tell you what was happening and to face the consequences.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always felt Ward's loyalty to Garrett was over the top. While I knew Garrett was probably a frequent visitor in Ward's life, he went to school in operations, he went on missions and he had 10 years to which he might have freed himself from Garrett's control. So I thought What if? Garrett did something to Ward to make sure he stayed loyal.


	19. The Past Hurts

Skye sits for a long time at the time after she May gave her the run down of what they had found. Ward hadn’t been brainwashed but Garrett had used a piece of alien technology on him that made him more compliant. He had also made a safe place for brainwashed SHIELD agents to get deprogrammed. 

She feels sadness for how she treated him when he was in Vault. She had been so angry that he deceived her, that he betrayed them, that he hurt Fitz and Simmons, she didn’t see through her rage. She didn't see he was hurting.

She makes her way down the stairs to find Fitz and Hunter playing cards. She knows Ward is safety locked up in his bunk but he doesn’t have to be locked up any longer. 

“They’re on their way back, Fitz,” she says. "Let's lower the ramp."

Fitz nods. He gets up and the both of them head to it. They lower the ramp and wait for them to arrive. 

It doesn’t take long for Coulson to show up, along with May, a man in his fifties, carrying a case, and a woman wearing May’s face. Skye knows it is Kara. Both of them look worse for wear. 

“Skye, Fitz, Hunter, this is Dr. Rickard and Kara Lynn Palamas.”

Kara says nothing. She wears May’s face but it looks more frightened than Skye has ever seen May. She smiles at her to loosen the tension.

Coulson stands with May and everyone is quiet for a few seconds, feeling awkward.

It is Coulson who leads them to Ward’s bunk. Skye opens the security lock. Ward is still sitting in the chair looking at the outside.

He turns around and his eyes widen. At first he thinks, she is looking at him, but she realizes his eyes are on Kara. 

He gets up and slowly moves slowly to the door. Skye realizes he is not going for her and moves at of the way so Kara could pass her.

In an instant they were both together in a strong embrace. There is nothing sexual. It is all comfort. 

“Kara—“ he says, stroking her hair.

She pulls back. She takes his hand and looks at the bandage on his wrist and his bruised knuckles, but doesn’t say anything.

“Dr. Rickard?” he asks, but he knows him from the machine.

Rickard smiles. He reaches out and shake his hand.

“We have a lot to talk about.” He walks into the room and places a case on the bed but doesn’t open it then explains what he told Coulson and May. 

Ward absorbs the information. First Coulson had told him what a horrible person he was and then Dr. Rickard tells him that he was also under some kind of alien device that made him super loyal to John Garrett.

“If I have this undone, I might go crazier?”

“I don’t know, but if you don’t do it. You are a danger to yourself and others.”

“Ward—“ Fitz said. “Remember what we talked about. You don’t have to be him.”

Ward looks around. Fitz, May, Coulson, and Skye. They were his team and he didn’t know them. 

“Okay,” he says. “So I don’t have to be a danger to anyone.”

“Lay down,” Rickard says. “Sometimes people lose consciousness after.” 

Ward lays next to the case Rickard brought. 

He opens the case and pulls out the stick. It is brown and the size of a baton. Rickard turns the top and it glows purple.

“Ready?”

Ward nods.

Rickard places the stick by his chest and then there is darkness.

 

Ward yawns loudly. A fifteen minute power nap is all he needs before his next class. But despite the grueling schedule, sleep does not come. 

He looks over to his clock. An hour until his next class. He feels drained. 

He rolls over in bed and looks at the nightstand. The four kids in the picture look happy, but he knows they aren't but he guesses things can change. 

He hears a light tapping from afar. It sounds like the door to dorm. He isn’t expecting anyone and he hears his roommate Marc moving around in the common area so he guesses it is for him. Marc is always out on a date. Ward doesn't do that bad. He discovered when he first got here, that some girls like the silent brooding type. This was after Marc tells him he needs to shower more than once a week.

Then there is a tap as his door.

“Come in.”

“Grant, you got a visitor.” Ward sits up in bed and makes his way to the common area. His sort of girlfriend Lisa is in class now. And Marc would have said if it is her. 

When he opens his door to the common area, he finds John Garrett sitting on the couch smiling at him.

“Hey kid, how are you doing?”

Ward take a deep breath. Does he know?

He puts on a smile and his hand out. “John,” he says with as much enthusiasm he can muster. “I thought you were on assignment?”

“A handshake, come here kid,” he said bringing him into a hug. “Got back a little early. Thought I would check on my favorite student.”

“Marc, this is John Garrett,” Marc shook his hand.

“It’s an honor to meet you, sir. Grant has told me a lot about you.”

“Hopefully not all bad.”

“No, sir. He told me about all the action you’ve seen. I look forward to being in the field.”

“You’ll love it, it’s thrilling. Now, Grant, my son. I’m only here one night before I’m off to the hub. Let’s say you and I get a drink and catch up. Marc, why don’t you join us?”

“Sorry, sir, I have class in 15.”

“I do too.” 

“When?”

“In an hour.”

“Great, my car’s outside, one drink and I’ll have you back here before class.”

Ward nods but the pit of stomach clenches. “I’ll get my shoes.”

 

“How’s school?” Garrett asked, still with a smile on his face as he drives the car. 

“They’ve already made me the teacher’s aide in the marksman class. I’ve won two competitions.”

“But you still practice?”

“I’m a the range, every day, sir, just like you told me.”

Garrett reaches over to what seems like a pat on the shoulder. Ward takes it without flinching.

“It’s really good to see you, kid. I missed you.” 

“I missed you too, sir.”

Garrett pats his shoulder once more. Ward suddenly feels a jolt of electricity fill his body. He cries out until it stops. He can’t move his body. “And I want to know why you felt the need to squeal to your little girlfriend about Hydra.”

“She’s not my girlfriend—And I thought she might be a good recruit.”

“You don’t do recruiting, kid. Your girlfriend told her teacher about it. Luckily the teacher works for Hydra and knows me.”

“John—“

“Not another word, kid. I did not waste 5 years of my life training you that you betray me for pussy.”

“John—“ 

Garrett puts his finger on Ward’s lips. “Kid, shut up.”

“No—“ he says. “John, I can’t do it.”

Garrett’s face turns from stern to soft. “Oh, kid, you should have told me. We all get doubts about the mission sometimes.”

“I thought you would kill me.”

“Kid, I care too much about you to do that.”

“John—please. My classmates. They are good people. I’m sorry about Shield didn’t help you when you needed it, but it’s a good organization.”

Garrett’s face turns bright red. Ward has never seen him this angry. Even in Wyoming.

He puts one hand on the wheel and with the other he punches Ward in the face. Ward who still can’t move takes it without response.

“Jesus Christ, kid. I take you from an abusive home, I make you a man, I teach you how to not be weak and one freaking year at the operations you turn against me?”

“I’m not turning against you. I’ll vanish, okay. You’ll never hear from me. I’ll never tell another person about Hydra. Promise.”

“Can let you do that either, kid. Why didn’t you tell me your brother got in touch with you?”

He doesn’t understand how Garrett knows that. He hasn’t told anyone. 

“He wanted to apologize,” he admits. “It was just a brief call. That’s all.”

“And you believed him? You once told me what he did to you. That if you didn’t beat up your little brother, you would get it twice more. And when you refused, he broke your arm.”

“It’s changed. He’s different.”

“I doubt that kid. Once a monster always a monster.” He reaches over again and touches his shoulder. There is another jolt of electricity. This time he blacks out.

 

He wakes up being able to feel his body again and sees a man in his late forties hovering over him. He is lying on some kind of couch in something that looks like a warehouse.

“You okay?” he asks.

“He’s fine,” says another voice, “Go get it. Dr. Rickard.”

“I’m sorry,” Rickard says as he reaches out to touch Ward’s shoulder. He doesn’t say anything else as he walks away.

John isn’t gentle. He grabs Ward by the collar and yanks him up. “You ungrateful weak-minded snot.” He throws Ward back into the couch but then grabs him again by the collar and pulls him up.

“I did not waste my time on you to become a snot-nose punk for SHIELD. They won’t take care of you, kid. I will.”

Ward doesn’t know what to do or where he is but he uses this moment to shove Garrett who doesn’t move from his position.

“Kid, don’t even try.” Garrett punches him hard in the face, splits open his lip. Ward can taste the copper of his blood. “I should have known you were weak when you didn’t kill that stupid dog. I’m sick of cleaning up your failures.”

“Please, John,” he says, holding out his hands. “Please. I won’t tell anyone anything. I promise.”

But Garrett is beyond mad. He slams Ward to the ground and reigns blows down on his face, chest, and stomach. Ward tries to put his hands up to stop him, but Garrett just knocks them away.

“Garrett!” a voice says. It’s Dr. Rickard. He has something in his hand that looks like a baton. Ward panics when he thinks Garrett will beat him with it. He crouches down to cover himself.

“Pathetic,” Garrett says. “Five years and this is what a get. A pathetic, weak, person who won’t take responsibility for his failures.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Rickard asks. “He’s not a good fit.”

“He’s not wasting my time. Hydra needs him.”

“John—“ Ward is close to crying. “Please—Please. We can leave this all behind. You don’t have to do this either.”

“I doubt it, kid.” He turns something on the baton and it turns blue. He slams it hard into his shoulder and Ward screams. 

A moment later he gets up from his position. 

“Yes, sir?” he asks.

Garrett smiles. “Kid, it’s good to see you again.”

“You have about ten minutes,” Rickard says. “He won’t remember this and you can change his memories for about an hour before. You know now you are responsible for him. If you die, he might go crazy. If you undo the stick, it might be even worse.”

“I don’t plan to die or undo the stick. Ward, you will not ever disobey me again. You got that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“When you see your friends, you’ll tell them we were in a bar fight. Some guys were harassing some very nice ladies.”

Ward nods. 

“You’re older brother Christian is still a monster and so are your parents. They don’t care about you. Nobody does except for me.”

“Sure,” he says. He looks at Dr. Rickard who frowns, then walks away.

 

He wakes up in his bed the next morning. Feeling better although his face hurts. He remembers the hot babes from the night before. He knows he’s in trouble for missing class but it doesn’t bother him. Garrett says he knows the teacher and he'll talk to her. 

There is a light tapping at the door.

Ward gets up to open it. Marc is on the other side. He looks concerned.

“What the hell happened, man?”

“It was nothing, you should see the other guy.”

Ward is surprised when Marc suddenly embraces him. He tries to pull away, flinching out his touch.

“I’m so sorry, man.”

Ward pulls away. “What? What are you talking about?”

“Oh my god, you haven’t heard you, have you. That’s right, you were out all night with your friend.”

“Marc, what is it, what’s going on.”

“I’m sorry, Grant, I really am. Lisa was killed last night. She got hit by a car and the bastard got away.”

Ward doesn’t reply. He sits on his bed. He wishes he were with her last night, instead of Garrett.


	20. Silence

When he opens his eyes, he’s back in his infirmary room and hooked up to an IV. There is only one person in the room, Kara. 

He remembers everything.

“Grant?” she says. “You’re finally awake.”

He says nothing to her, doesn’t even smile. He turns his back on her.

She touches his shoulder. He doesn’t flinch but he doesn’t turn around. 

“I know,” she says. “Dr. Rickard says you might need some time to process. You’ve been out for two days. They bought us back to the base. Just the three of us. We were   
blindfolded.”

He can’t respond. 

He remembers Christian’s phone call. How glad he was Ward had gotten his life together despite what happened growing up. Christian had been a little bit different. He was still kind of a charmer, but he’s not the monster from growing up. 

He remembers Garrett egging him on to shoot Christian and his parents.

He remembers throwing Fitz and Simmons into the ocean. Just like he threw Thomas into the well.

It was the first time after Christian’s beatings that he just did it. Christian said throw the kid in the well and he did it without question. He felt hatred for the first time. He blamed Christian for it, he blamed Thomas for it, but really the hatred he felt was for himself. He had become a monster.

He killed people because SHIELD told him too. He told Skye there were bad people. He killed people for John Garrett because he told him to.

He hears voices and someone else comes into the room.

“Grant—“ it’s Dr. Rickard.

He doesn’t respond.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “For what I did to you. I take full responsibility. This will be hard, but you’ll get through it.”

He doesn’t. He stops talking. May rightly stole his voice after he betrayed his team. The people who rely on him. Now his voice is gone.

They don’t realize he’s stopped talking until two days later. He’s not catatonic. He uses the bathroom, takes his meds, walks around a bit to make sure his body doesn’t stiffen but he doesn’t talk.

Most of the day, he lays on the bed, staring at the wall or the ceiling, thinking about everything he’s done.

He doesn’t try to end his life. That would be too convenient and easy, but he doesn’t know how to process everything.

In the beginning, he gets only three visitors, Kara, Rickard, and Fitz. Fitz jokes he was right that Ward was brainwashed. He doesn’t tell him he wasn’t. That the stick only made Garrett’s orders harder to disobey.

As the days stretch he gets more visitors. Simmons is the first. She apologizes for holding a gun to his head and thanks him for the time he jumped out of plane to save her. She says she’s still angry but she understands. She even touches his shoulder. 

He still says nothing.

Coulson comes the same day. He still has anger in his voice, but he talks about second chances and the future. 

Ward knows he has no future.

Three visits almost get him to talk but it’s not enough.

The first is Skye.

She apologizes again for shooting him and for mocking him. She says she was so angry at him for what he had done. She says she realizes that after Garrett died, he was trying to make up what he did in the only way he knew how.

He still says nothing. He wants to apologize, but he can’t. Wants to tell her the real truth but can’t.

Kara comes in. Says they got the mask off. This manages to make him turn around. She still scarred. He touches her face and smiles, wants to say she’s beautiful, but doesn’t.

Billy Koenig is next. Ward remembers killing his brother. He says Sam won’t come. He says he will never forgive him. How he broke their mother’s heart, but he says he understands.

He want to tell them he’s sick of hearing they understand.

He doesn’t know how many days have passed. They change his medications, adding one for depression. He doesn’t know how long they will keep him here. He eats a little when they bring him food. Are they going to send him to prison or will he go back to Colorado and share a room with Amy and Bob? 

Amy once told him he was selfish for not undoing the stick. He is supposed to feel the guilt and the pain as she has.

He always made her false promises. How he’ll do it when he’s done finding brainwashed shield agents. She doesn’t believe him.

His salvation comes from the last person he expected. He doesn’t know how long he hasn’t spoken. Days? Weeks? He could always keep count of the days. He learned that from when Garrett left him in the woods but he stops now.

“They’re going to send you to the psyche ward.”

He almost laughs. Ward in the Ward.

The last person he expects is May. A woman who never forgives. Never forgets. He physically damaged Fitz, but he can’t imagine what he did to May. 

He is surprised when May yanks him by the shoulder into a seated position. He still says nothing.

She punches him in the mouth hard.

He touches his chin but doesn’t talk.

“I think that this is the only language you understand. Six languages and the only one you really understand is violence.”

She reigns another blow on him. He takes it without fighting back. He looks to the door. No chair is there. No cavalry to save him. She’s standing in front of him.

“No one is coming to help you,” she says. “And I’ve disabled the cameras.”

He doesn’t care. He sits there silently accepting her blows, because really he deserves it.

“We know about Garrett. How he kidnapped you when you 15 and kept you isolated in the woods for 5 years. Why didn’t you ever tell us that?”

Would they have cared? They wanted someone to blame for Hydra and he was there.

When he doesn’t respond to the third blow. She takes him by the shoulders and shakes him violently. 

“Ward, wake the hell up.”

That’s when everything breaks.

He speaks for the first time.

“No,” he says. “No more.”

And he begins to cry. Everything hits him hard at once. His brother, his parents, Garrett. He cries like a baby for the first time in a long time. The last time he had been 15 and the first time alone in the woods. Even Buddy hadn’t helped. He had been sure he was going to die—alone and terrified.

May sits on the bed and he is surprised when she embraces him. She is surprisingly comforting. Something they had never done when they were intimate. Ward had never been a hugger.

“I don’t know,” he says between sobs. It’s what stole his voice. It was what he couldn't tell the others -- or even Skye. “I don’t know what was the stick, what was Garrett, or what was me. I don’t know who I am.”

“I know,” she says. “When I came back from my mission, I didn’t know either—but you know what. You eventually figure it out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one more chapter after this, cleaning up a few things.


	21. A New Chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a little sweet Skyeward moment at the end but it's not a ship scene. I'm not a shipper but I am kind of liking his relationship with Kara and that she did not become the Buffy-Bot.

The next day, he asks to see Coulson. Coulson doesn’t delay. He comes as soon as Ward calls.

“How are you doing?” he asks.

“Been better.”

“Have you thought about what you want to do?”

“I guess I should probably go to prison. I have to pay for what I’ve done.”

“But what do you want to do?”

He doesn’t hesitate “I want to continue rescuing the brainwashed Shield agents.”

“Sounds like a plan. I think you should do it.”

“What?”

“I’ve been taking to Maria Hill. She thinks that maybe she can get a pardon for the brainwashed shield agents. Including you, Amy, and Bob.”

“I killed a US Senator.”

“Natasha Romanoff has killed her share as well. She was pardoned too. Besides I think we're going to make the official story 'unknown HYDRA agents.'”

“I deserve some kind of punishment.”

“The guilt will be punishment enough, and helping us rebuild SHIELD.”

Coulson is right. He doubted he would ever forgive himself. “I’ve talked to Dr. Rickard. We would like to use your Colorado land for a new shield base. One to help the brainwashed agents and to train new recruits. You up to that?”

“Yes.”

“Sam will be in charge. I’m reinstating her as a SHIELD agent. I will probably bring Kara back in if she wants. I can’t do the same for you, not yet. I guess we’ll keep you on as a consultant.”

“That’s fine—I don’t know if I can be a SHIELD agent again either.” He also almost laughs. Now he’s the consultant and Skye’s the agent.

“There are some conditions.”

“What?”

“You have to stay on your medications and Dr. Rickard says that he runs therapy groups. You will part of that and you will share. Dr. Rickard and I have come to a tentative agreement about what he did for Hydra. If Rickard says you can’t go on this mission, you don’t go on it. Period.”

He nods thinking briefly about how painful that will be. “What about Bob and Amy?”

“Maria Hill will fund some money to have Bob’s placed in a psychiatric facility. Amy doesn’t know what she wants yet. For now she’ll stay in the house. Rickard thinks that despite all her anger, she's trustworthy.”

“Okay.”

“And,” Coulson says, taking a breath. “We don’t have a lot of SHIELD files but we have some. There was an agent named Jennifer Coolidge. She’s dead. She found some irregularities at one of the SHIELD juvenile facilities. The one you were supposed to be at when Garrett had you. I think there are more children out there like you and I think we need to find them.”

“I think so too.”

“Ward, I made a mistake.”

Ward is surprised. Coulson never admits to making a mistake even when he’s done one.

“I immediately assumed you had turned on us, and it never crossed my mind that Garrett did something to you. For that, I’m sorry. I left you adrift and I shouldn’t have.”

“Thank you,” he says. “What you said means a lot to me.”

“And I was so busy trying to rebuild SHIELD, I forgot about Hydra’s victims. Those brainwashed SHIELD agents.”

“Garrett told me that they rarely brainwashed people.”

“He was Hydra and they lie. According to Dr. Rickard, it’s was a lot more agents than we thought. He brainwashed dozens of agents, but he wasn’t the only one.”

He agrees but says nothing.

“May is getting ready to take you all back to Colorado on the bus. You’ll be blindfolded of course. Is there anything else?”

“Nothing, except thank you.”

Coulson shakes his head. “No, I should be thanking you.”

“Hey,” he hears a voice. Skye is at the door. “Just letting you know that May is leaving in about 15 minutes. I thought we could talk. AC can you give us a few minutes?”

He nods and leaves the room without a word.

He doesn’t know what to says. He doesn't know how she'll react when he talks to her.

“Hi,” he manages to get out.

“I’m glad you’re talking again.”

He nods.

“And now you’re not talking to me.”

She’s right. How could he possibly explain any of it and make her fully understand? Even after all he’s been through and learning what Garrett did to him, he still not up to fully sharing, but he knows he owes some truths, at least.

“I won’t ever bother you again,” he says.

Her eyes widened in surprise.

“It’s okay—I understand. You were under Garrett’s control.”

“That’s the problem— Skye, I don’t know what my feelings are about you. My family, Garrett, the stick, I don’t even know what feelings are real and what aren’t. At Cybertek, Garrett ordered me to get you; Order me to take you like you were some kind of gift for being a loyal dog. I don’t know if I was acting on feelings or his orders.”

She doesn’t say anything. For a normal bubbly talkative woman, she’s strangely silent. He realizes that this is just as uncomfortable for her as it is for him.

“I think,” she says. “I think you wanted me, but Garrett’s order make you come and try to take me—At least I hope so and I think you should hope so too.”

He can’t respond to that. Instead he deflects the conversation. “We can be friends—that’s okay. After all we’ve been through, I don’t think we can be anything more.” 

He knows this. And her eyes say she knows it too but he also sees a glimmer of hope in her smile.

“I’m sorry I shot you.”

“Serendipity.”

“What?”

“If you hadn’t shot me, I wouldn’t have met Dr. Rickard and I wouldn’t have found out about the stick.”

She smiles.

“That being said,” his tone turns serious. “Don’t shoot unarmed people in the back, even the bad guys. Heroes don’t do that. Next time shoot me in the knee caps.”

This time she laughs. He’s glad to hear it.

“I won’t shoot you next time, promise—And what you’re doing—Helping those brainwashed agents. It’s something we should have done. The greater good.”

“Yes.”

“And what you said on the bathroom floor about us being your family—“ she bites her lips.

“You were. I blew it—“

“Garrett blew it.”

Garrett had taught him that everything was his fault, as Christian had before him, even when it wasn’t.

“The others,” he says. “They’re my family now. They know what I’ve been through and they understand.”

Skye doesn’t say anything.

“But maybe we can all be friends again.”

She still doesn’t respond and May interrupts her. 

“We’re ready to go.”

Ward looks at Skye and smiles. “We’ll meet again.” He heads to the door. He walks a few steps before Skye calls out.

“Ward, wait—“

She goes over to him and hugs him tightly. He doesn’t pull away.

“I forgive you,” she says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've gone a little obsessed in my tumblr over my theories on Ward. https://www.tumblr.com/blog/fullofcats81 Might need an intervention. 
> 
> Also I started writing fan fic again because of horrific writers block which I think is helping me get back into the professional stuff. So I will post more redemption stories but they probably won't be as long as Memory.


End file.
